Dust Days
by GoodSir of achoo
Summary: (Co-op with Mr.P3pp3r8867)-Gaea has finally been defeated, but not without consequences. The gods are gone, the world is left in ruins, and Percy is on his own. Perhaps with enough time, he can turn this world around, saving this Remnant he once called home.
1. Chapter 1

Their swords clashed violently again, and sparks tossed around like a firework. Percy stood his ground, surrounded by the bodies of comrades and enemy alike. Their bloody forms were ignored by the stragglers, the ones who survived. However, this collection of dead was no strange phenomenon to a battlefield.

What _was_ strange was that the golden dust of monster and giant _and_ god flied upwards, straight as an arrow, up and up forever, disappearing into the sunset. Yes. Sunset. Maybe the sun was a giant ball of gas after all.

His attention was brought back to his so-called enemy.

Alabaster C. Torrington let out a weak blast of magic, doing nothing but blow back the demigod's hair.

"It's good to finally see you again, Percy Jackson."

"Come on Al. For old times sake, don't fight me. we-"

"You- don't you see? There's nothing left for us. No point in doing this anymore. We have to finish this."

Percy's emotion. Hatred, grief, and the endless suffering. Sometimes he would let loose a bit of stress, share it with a certain someone. Almost like the scarce few times he saw his mom. Well, meeting your parents did not usually result in sex.

He cackled at his mind's weak attempt to lighten the mood. Focusing the pain he felt in his throat, Riptide glowed sea-green, letting out an arc of energy that knocked Alabaster back. The wizard struggled to stand, clashing with Percy once more.

With every strike, he could feel a bit of his care and hope chip away. They fought and fought, steps becoming more labored, until-

PING!

His life shattered before his eyes. Riptide, still sharp, broke into decades of pieces. Over a thousand years of fine craftsmanship broken down. Percy looked down at his shaking arm, his emotions fully taking control of it. With his good arm, Percy grunted and shoved a broken fist into Al's jaw, sending the magician to the ground.

Al rolled around happily, anticipating his end.

"You know, there should be a group of demigods east…"

"W-what type?"

"Ciao, _seaweed brain_ , type-Cs, of course."

"I don't even care anymore…"

He shook Alabaster again and again, again and again, again and again, again and again. His head roared back in maniacal laughter, falling onto his back.

 _I hope you found peace, Annie_

 **Here on this Battlefield lies**

 **Percy Jackson** **Annabeth Chase** **Jason Grace** **Piper Mclean**

 **Leo Valdez** **Frank Zhang** **Hazel Levesque**

 **Connor Stoll** **Chris Rodrigeuez** **Cecil Markowitz** **Julia Feingold**

 **Alice Miyazawa** **Will Solace** **Austin Lake** **Kayla Knowles**

 **Katie Gardner** **Miranda Gardner** **Meg Mcaffrey** **Billie Ng**

 **Pollux** **Clarrise La Rue** **Sherman Yang** **Mark**

 **Ellis Wakefield** **Josie Peretta** **Malcom Pace** **Drew Tanaka**

 **Lacy** **Mitchell** **Valentina Diaz** **Jake Mason**

 **Nyssa** **Shane** **Christopher** **Harley**

 **And many more. We hope to one day recover all those that fell, and may the nameless rest in peace.**

I stared blankly at the brown sky, eyes wandering to Riptide. Its mechanisms vibrated and shook, attempting to go into pen and sword mode at the same time. I sent a pulse of reassurance down the blade, and it stopped clicking. I knelt down and scooped up the remaining pieces, not caring that my hands bled.

The final battle was long. For three weeks, both sides prepared. All the different pantheons were called in to New York for the last stand. We were let in on secrets of our different pantheons, the good that did in saving all of us. Fuck, the whole "power thrones in Greece" was a trick to throw Gaea off. Speaking of the battle...

Slaying Gaea was a bad call.

As the battle roared on, the gods fought at another level- one which we could not understand. They weren't physical beings.

They were the force of nature.

The earth rolled and wreathed, swallowing entire city blocks, but leaving certain things… there. New York was now a collection of few buildings. I blankly rolled back the body of another demigod.

" _Demigods! Behind me!" Poseidon roared, shaking the earth with his words._

 _His call to safety was ignored by the majority of us. Like a swarm of locusts, the black metal shards descended upon us- a spell designed to eradicate the demigods. Poseidon's glowing hands slammed into the ground, creating a bubble shield around those of us who were close to him._

 _I watched as Annabeth mouthed 'good bye' at me, swallowed by the black swarm._

The soft 'thud' of me landing on soft ground from the top of the Empire State building landed on deaf ears of none. I jogged in a random direction, towards some shopping mall that still stood. Mother earth had literally taken over. There was no grass. Just the hard dust and earth.

What was I running away from?

What was I even doing?

Was I heading east, just like I promised?

I wasn't sure.

One thing that wasn't denied though, was this.

Olympus has fallen.

Camp was a no-go. Just what kind of surprise could await me there? Gaea had most definitely crashed the place she hated, a hate only rivaled by her hate for Olympus.

The black howls of the wolf in my hand- wait what?

It was a small 'werewolf' like thing, one I had instinctively grabbed by the head. It struggled and attempted to pry my hands away, but its whines fell on its pack- wait what?

I frowned. What were these things? Their bloody mouths and eyes brought no fear from me. I was merely curious. With a grunt, I lifted the short thing with both arms, and gouged its eyes out with my thumbs. The shrieks of pain I gifted it was silenced quickly when I ripped the thing in half from the head.

From what I could tell, these things weren't very protected. The twelve or so members of its pack had the same protection. Nothing. However, one of them had some kind of white plating on its arm. What they could do to me, wasn't important. What they could do to everyone else, though…

As the first one charged, I frowned. What kind of dumbass does that? They had large spaces to maneuver, and could easily trap me in a circle. Not that it would matter, mind you. I gave it a light tap to the face, and the creature flinched back in pain. I impaled the wolf in the stomach, riptide almost dropping and cleaving the entire thing in half.

As I drove it back, the others finally gained some sense, and two charged me at once. I slashed through its stomach, the cut killing the two chargers. I stepped back and waited. Charging into a group of enemies was never wise, added to the fact that I lacked ranged options that could take out all of them at once due to the disappearance of water. The first in line charged forward. I frowned again. Did these things really have no self-preservation? Opting to attack one at a time… Well, they were going to get it.

I punched it and stabbed a shard of Riptide into its face, and slashed apart the ones after it into ribbons. I stepped aside a lazy lunge, and decapitated it. _Eight more._ Needless to say, I got the gist of it really quick. They were quick to see through, with no ability to plan. Simply dodging their attacks left them open. I almost felt like I didn't deserve it. _Almost._

The last of its pack's head was reduced to paste as I stradle/punched it. The black blood on my knuckles slowly drifted and lightened. _No golden dust?_ Then where could these things have come from? I turned aro-

Oh.

The black mist slowly travelled east, covering the land with… something. The gathering of darkness was so big- so large, and so tall, even at the edge of my sight, I could see no ends. Well, it wasn't that tall. Like.. tsunami tall. It just felt kind of familiar, you know? Like something I saw in the old tar-tar jar. Couldn't remember it, though.

I was worried, sure. Just hoped that the cloud won't speed up and catch up to me, you know? Like, I'm pretty sure you would gain some evil, super cool power that transformed you into a monster of darkness. But, no, dear _author_ , I wasn't going to fall for that trick again. Never again. Fuck you, Nekhbet.

"You hear that, you bitch?" I yelled. I didn't swear often, but this was… relieving.

I laughed merrily and walked towards the building.

"Getting over me this quick? I thought we-" Annabeth sat in front of me. I ignored her and kept walking.

That night, I slept on the hard, cold ground, feeling Gaea's body below me.

In the morning we packed our things.

I looked around and saw no one. I… just wasn't used to travelling alone. I was, in a sense, a pack animal. I prefered company when travelling, like all the quests I'd been on. But, outside of quests… I didn't interact too much. My sole purpose was the prophecy. Before, nothing really had meaning. Sure, I sort of loved my mother, but… I made an excuse about attracting monsters and stayed at camp, trained as hard as I could.

What a coward I was.

To see me, Percy Jackson, the supposed hero, have nothing. I just wanted to find purpose, find that lack of direction my life, or just about any of our lives had. To see it all fall down like this, it was fucking pathetic. My life was wasted in trying to achieve a fairy tale, one that I refused to believe was evil, even when the Titan Wars tried to show me.

Even if I survived, I still lost.

I gripped the shards even tighter, hissing in pain at the sharp cuts and drip of blood. I stared at my palms. Maybe I coul-

No. No. With an angered roar, I threw the handful of bronze into the ground, embedding the shards deep into the ground like a farmer.

"Fuck you, dad!" I punched the ground, creating a web of cracks.

"Fuck you, Gaea!" The next punch split the ground I stood on.

"Fuck everything on this fucking planet!" With a bruised fist, and a rapid heart, the earth responded to my anger, several human-sized spikes drove out of the ground.

I ran.

Ran as far as my legs would carry me, each step I left behind creating cracks in the earth, propelling this angsty teen forward faster than his legs could carry him. Riptide was thrown haphazardly in a general direction, no doubt taken by the earth, but at that moment I wasn't really focused on a broken sword. I was focused on living.

I ran. I ran as fast as my legs could go, as far as they could carry me. I didn't know how far it was, but I was back in the city I once called home. Home. That wasn't even a thing anymore, was it? Nothing but broken buildings and giant grave markers now. Mom's apartment was destroyed, the bridges were practically melted. Even the Empire State building was now just a glorified pile of rubble. But it was a familiar pile of rubble.

My legs burned, but I kept going. I wasn't going to let some random thing get me. I had to go on, even if everyone else was gone. Because if I died, who would remember them? Who would keep them from fading? At some point, I don't know when, I ran back.

If the outside of the Empire building was rubble, the inside could have been called a trash heap. Broken everything, chairs, windows, walls. Even the ceiling was shattered, giving me an Olympus-sized hole in the roof to look through. I hid behind what remained of the bellhop's desk. My lungs felt like bursting, my legs were jelly, and I'm pretty sure I was about to lose an argument with my stomach, but for now I had to rest, so I shut my eyes and let my exhaustion take me.

It was around noon when I woke up. The sun hung lazily in the sky, hidden partially behind clouds that looked like they wanted to choke the city. Zeus and the other gods had fallen, beaten along with Gaea in her final trick. The Apocalypse. Yeah, really fucking great victory we had there. Beat the oldest goddess in history - and even before that - and we still ended up losing everything. Hoo-fucking-ray.

Using what little leverage a half-broken desk could give me, I pushed myself to my feet. They argued, spring pain all along my legs, but I ignored them for now. It was bad enough I was alone, but now I know there are things out there, something like the monsters I once knew, but also something entirely different. Still, that meant I had to watch out, so I left. I had to get away from the ghosts, so I left. I made for the city exit, taking the now dead tollway as a sort of shortcut. At least I could get out of the city. And away from the pain. I looked at the mirrors, and my blood froze.

 _Gods Above_

 _Grandpa K_

It was probably six by the time I entered that dark hallway. Cars were all over the place, and a couple even had skeletons in them. Where the others went, I didn't want to know. Was it really wise to investigate? Kronos… I wasn't sure it was Kronos, but this was far too great of a coincidence.

My breath stopped as I peeked at the top of the building once again.

The scythe was just like how Luke had it: silver, edged in bronze, but with some… gold. And it felt wrong. Like even now, after everything had fallen apart, it wanted to be separated. And it didn't help that it just so happened to be stuck in a literal pile of bodies. Guess that's where the others went. I thought I would have been ready for anything, especially after seeing everything just die, but this. . . This wasn't something I wanted to see, even in a nightmare. The sight alone had me ready to vomit. I could feel bile in my throat. But the smell. . . Gods. That did it. My stomach emptied itself, right then and there. The sour, burning bile mixed with whatever was on the ground, and left a horrible smell after. Nothing like a mountain of _corpses_. The battlefield smelt horrible. But this? This was a thousand times worse, in size and shape. I couldn't put it into words.

Still, what was his end goal? What was Kronos' game plan? It wasn't like old Granddad Kronos to just leave his things lying about. No, there was a reason for this being here. I stood there, trying to figure out his endgame, which was going to be difficult seeing as how Kronos was Time incarnate. He wasn't on our side, like, at all. He had a whole plan spanning a few years that almost succeeded in tearing down Olympus, and every time we thought we had him figured out, he pulled another one of his tricks and we were back at square one. Not even Chiron or the gods, Kronos' own kids, could figure him out. The sticky note on the blade told that.

 _Have Fun_

 _Grandpa K_

I gripped the weapon's black handle, pulling it out of the pile, which I nearly slipped on. As quickly as I could, I left the area, not wanting to deal with the dead. At least the scythe didn't do this. The wounds on the corpses told their stories.

Immediately, instead of a regular weapon, the scythe shone in a weak golden light, filling me with not warmth, but satisfaction. The area around me shifted for the slightest bits, as if changed by time. The passage of time became clear to me.

 _18:42:34, July, 19th, 2012, (Human) UTC_

 _11:42:34, July, 19th, 2012, (Human) PT_

…

I pushed the extra info out of my head, feeling the unfamiliar cold power the scythe brought me. I waved it once, and it cut through the air, leaving trails of… shimmering glass-like things that reflected back. I realized what it was.

The different possibilities of time.

I looked at the bent reflective surface carefully, trying to see, but all I saw was my own reflection.

Anyways, scythes weren't really my rig. I asked for crash courses and studied scythe fighting at camp, hopefully to have a chance against Kronos if the need arises. Perhaps something more practical, like…

The blade bent forwards, bending space time with it. A war scythe? More practical, but still not the best weapon… The blade folded back, blades shifting and bending to a much smaller weapon.

The sickle.

Pretty much a peasant's weapon in medieval warfare, but the gods did live there at some point, which meant camp had weapons training for almost every weapon they were familiar with. Scythes and sickles and war scythes too. After all, did you really think demigods just trained with one type of weapon they picked? Hell no! How stupid do you think we are? It's not like in the real world, you'll come across ancient greek xiphos that you could use. Knives, farming tools, and guns were all taught at camp. Provided you weren't a year-rounder, of course. I was a year-rounder, but the frequent quests provoked me to at least learn some other common weapons.

"I don't suppose you could be carried easily?" I asked.

The sickle shrunk down to a translucent bracelet, with a mini scythe on the end.

"Ain't life convenient?"

The scythe agreed, humming with energy.

As I walked towards my original destination, the mall, I gave all the different "forms" a few swings. Apparently, the thing could switch to most things scythe-related. Khopesh was the easiest to use, it was almost like a sword, just with a scythe-like curve on the end. I remembered it once when Annabeth and I had to help these Egyptian magicians (I saw again at the battle). They were a bit weird, but they were cool enough. For a moment I wondered if they managed to survive this long, but I didn't get my hopes up. More than likely they probably died, or scattered, or disbanded and struck out on their own. That was all I could think now. Thinking that if someone was actually was alive, they either left on their own, or died somewhere in this... Hell. That's what the world had become. Hell. And I was 'lucky' enough to live through it.

After what felt like hours, I finally made it. The mall. It was burned, charred, and broken a few places, but it was miraculously still standing. As I scanned the parking lot, looking for any nasty surprises, I spotted a biker. At least, I think he was a biker. Carefully, I walked over, tensing myself for anything that might have a bone to pick with survivors. That's what Al said. There were survivors, demigods. Type-Cs, I think he said. Ones like me. I could only hope they were friendly enough not to kill me on sight.

The body of the "biker" was covered in blood. It splattered all over the parking lot. Luckily, none of the _inner_ organs were revealed. Just the tire iron in his heart… I retrieved the small shotgun in his left hand, sending my prayers that he made _some_ kind of afterlife. His vehicle was smoking, broken beyond repair by claw marks…

"Behind me!" I heard a voice yell. Other survivors?

In the distance, I saw a group of people, unidentifiable at this distance. Their clothes were worn but still decent, and they wore masks of fear. The person in the front, no doubt a leader or fighter, was pushing back the black wolves I saw earlier, with… low success.

His arms were bleeding, like he had been scratched repeatedly. Bite marks were visible on his shoulders, and I'm pretty sure I had to step in. The first was cut down by the scythe, and the second was _shot_ by the _shotgun_. From the temporary cover the disintegrating beast gave me, the others were either cut down or stabbed with the war scythe "mode."

The battle only lasted for less than a minute, but once it was over I decided to greet the survivors. Thankfully helping slaughter some monsters helped me with a first impression. I offered a hand to the wounded blonde.

"Need a hand?" I know, bad greeting, especially when his hands were scratched and bleeding, but he took my offered hand nonetheless and nodded. "Thanks for the assist," he said. "The name's John Arc. Mind if I ask for your name?" He seemed friendly enough, but even so, I had to keep my guard up a little. "Percy Jackson," I replied. John smiled and shook my hand. "Well Percy, I'm glad you came along when you did. We've been having a few rough days with these things." He motioned towards where the black wolves used to be.

The group, of varying size, shape, gender identity, sexuality, eye color, whatever, didn't have that weird hero worship thing. Instead, they just looked glad to be alive. It was enough to ask for. I scanned the group for _that_ thing. I was in luck! Looking for some light conversation, I asked.

"Do you mind if I join?" No one objected.

"Where'd you get that scythe?" Thank god, I remembered to cover it in some mist to make it look like a conventional farming tool.

"Grabbed it at walmart for 75% off."

Seeing the unimpressed stares, I attempted to salvage the conversation.

"So, what's everyone's profession? You got a ring of leadership yet?"

John turned around, and motioned for everyone to follow.

"Samwise here, our old guy, is the guide. He knows this city the best, even after all those earthquakes. We're staying at this… probably walmart for a bit for supplies, and then moving on. Gwen is the… Gwen, what do you do again?"

The Asian woman behind him snorted and stayed quiet.

"Bran… helps with stuff. Jessie is our wisdom, taught a bit of first aid." At least they had some useful skills.

"Anyways, we're heading inside the mall for supplies. You can tag along. If you could teach us some of those moves, that is." I smirked at the early days of my career as a combat instructor.

This was going to be fun.

 **Line Break here?**

The fire cracked slightly under the shattered-wait shattered moon? I looked up, not believing what I was seeing. The moon was literally shattered. Chunks of moon were already floating away, with only the largest staying behind. How did I not notice that before? If there was ever a sign that the gods were truly gone, that was it. Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt and Moon, would have never let her literal sphere of influence break, especially like that.

"Quite a sight, ey?" Samwise chuckled.

"What happened?" I asked, wanting a mortal explanation.

Some other people were happily chatting as they chewed on cans of food. They motioned Sam over, and tossed him a can of beer. He apologized, and left to join the group. John and Gwen sat around me, eating silently.

It was Jessie who finally answered. "Armageddon happened. When the world was ending, the moon shattered apart, just like that. Once that happened, the whole city began to tear itself apart, and when the dust settled, almost everyone else was dead. But I guess you saw that, didn't you?"

I winced. I was ON Olympus when it happened, but the alternate dimension did offer great views to the world. The entire world rolled up like a mat, swallowing everything and becoming part of the earth again.

"It was like an environmental activist gained superpowers or something…" Oh boy, he had no idea how correct he was. _It was definitely someone who cared for the environment_ , I thought, though I neglected to tell them that instead of a raging environmentalist, it was my great-great grandmother fighting my dad, uncles, aunts, and cousins in an all out power slug fest. That probably wouldn't have earned me any points with them, anyway.

I looked back to the moon, wondering if anyone else made it. There had to have been some other survivors, somewhere in the world. War or not, there was sure to be some demigods who weren't in the radius. If that was true, though… then there was a good chance monsters survived. Hell, I've seen telekhines swim in lava.

Jessie looked over at me, apparently noticing how crappy I looked. "You best get some rest, sweetie. We'll be needing all of our strength for the trials ahead." It was almost cryptic enough to make me believe she was the Oracle reborn, but she was right about sleep. My legs were still burning from all the craters I made, and my arms felt heavy after today, so sleep sounded pretty damn good right about now.

I told them all good night, found myself a spot close enough to the group, but far away enough to be kind of secluded, and let sleep take me.

It was dark when I woke up. I thought I was still in the mall, and that the sun hadn't risen yet, but something told me I wasn't. Maybe it was the fact that there was a carpet under me, or that there was something squelching in the darkness. Feeling around blindly, my hands came across what felt like wet paper. It gave away easy enough, and I felt myself tumbling downward. It didn't hurt like it should have, so that either meant I had died in my sleep, or I was dreaming. I was willing to bet I was dreaming.

Once I stopped rolling like a stone, I actually had some light in my dream. It was a lantern, an old one like they used back when mining was still a cheap labor work in the mortal realm. I took the lantern, and began to walk, not really knowing where I was going, but my dreams were usually like that. After what seemed like an hour or so, I thought I heard something. _Percy_. Yep, I heard something alright. Seeing as how this dream didn't feel like it was ending anytime soon, I decided to go towards the sound. _Percy_. It was a whispered voice, but it was louder now, like I was getting closer.

Finally, I found it… whatever it was. It looked like a person at first, made entirely of a dark green light, before it slowly changed, the dark green light shone brightly from two orbs now sitting on a table. _Does this mean I'll become a desk in the future?_ Suddenly, a creak and a groan was heard. _Look behind._ I did, saw something… weird. That was the only way to describe it. Dark water was puddling before me, yet it sounded like an ocean from where I was. I happened to look down, thinking I would see whatever my dream was trying to show me. Instead, I saw myself. And on the other side of the puddle, two _other_ sea-green orbs stared at me. _PERCY!_

I sat up with a jolt, panting heavily as I looked around, hoping I wasn't still in the dream. Thank the [un-immortalized] gods, I was back in the mall, coated in sweat and shivering, but alive. But what the actual fuck was that? Was that me? My evil time-travelling doppelganger? I honestly didn't know what to make of that. It was horrible, and it felt wrong. It was like I was looking at a corrupted reflection of myself. _Please don't make me fight doppelganger_ , I pleaded, not really sure to who. Just pleading, I guess.

"You alright?" John asked. I nodded, and we started work.

There was light breakfast, where the lighter dishes were opened up. Mostly canned fruits and granola bars. There was a short patrol to scavenge supplies in pairs. I picked up a few… blunt instruments, showing some people basic stances and mistakes commonly made.

"Yeah. Just don't spin. Never spin to attack. Yeah, don't kick if you're not confident, either."

A primary lesson in self-defense was not that you had to win. Most times, getting help was the best choice. That's why everyone travelled in pairs, of course. Just make sure you can run faster than your partner!

Fuck, nevermind. As long as there were none of the traditional monsters I fought, these guys would prevail. The black monsters weren't that much trouble, mostly dangerous due to their claws and speed. If they had more of that white armor, though… that would be a different story.

I stared at the group as they organized their new supplies, thinning out a few potential fighters. Gwen could use a stronger build, John needed a real weapon (with practice), and Samwise needed ammo. Bran? I remember he learnt grappling or something. Seeing nothing new, I wish I had brought some of the demigod weapons. They weren't all celestial bronze, after all. There were a few firearms, knives, and swords that were made of mortal steel.

"Hey," I asked. "You guys got any water?"

 **Line**

I grinned and put the plastic bottle away in a satchel they gifted me. Finally, some magic healing juice! Vitakinesis was one of the best abilities to have. You could cheese through tough enemies like nothing if you could heal by DRINKING WATER. Which made me wonder what the fuck I was doing on all those quests and battles. Why didn't I bring water?

The next few days, we hanged around the mall, until the supplies started dwindling, and we planned our next destination.

"There were a lot of earthquakes a while ago. Not sure if that's why everything on this map is fucked up."

Of course, earthquakes were a correlation with tectonic plate movement. What? Earth is part of MY domain, after all. I mean, someone had to take over, right? And unless Dad hid any siblings as a backup plan then I was on my own. Just what kind of other plans did the other gods have… Athena must have predicted this.

It hit me then, just how alone I was. Everyone I knew was gone, either dead or missing. The gods were dead. Or, as dead as a god could get without coming back ever again. Did gods actually go to the Underworld? Was there even an underworld anymore? What about Annabeth? Gods, now that I actually had time to think about this… fuck, this hurts. This pain, it's worse than any other pain I've felt before. It's worse than holding up the sky, worse than the pit scorpion venom. Hell, compared to what I was feeling Tartarus felt like a vacation, for a demigod anyway. Nothing was worse than loneliness. Even with all my solitude training habits, I still had people surrounding me. It was made worse by the fact that I didn't know what fate they had. Were the Fates still around anymore, or was everything now just winging it?

"Hey, you doin' alright?" Samwise asked. It took me a moment to realize that I had zoned out and my body just went to autopilot while my mind was being hit by an emotional bag of bricks. "Yeah," I lied, not wanting to have to first explain the concept of mythology being real and then telling that everything and everyone I knew just died, and I only now just realized it. I'd rather not cry just yet, not until I was alone at least. Samwise gave me a look that practically screamed 'You're lying," but he left me alone enough.

After that, the day passed quickly, with Samwise, Billy, and myself scavenging for supplies while the others scouted out a place for us to stay for the night. We were now starting to reach the fringes of New York, so places like malls and supermarkets were more scarce, but what we did find was a bunch of canned goods from one of the smaller local places. Guess no one bothered with a small grocery store in the Apocalypse. It was a good haul, at least two bags worth of canned goods. I felt accomplished when we came out of that store, thinking things were about to look up for once.

"Get down!" Samwise whispered harshly, taking cover behind one of the broken down cars. It wasn't a second later that we were behind him. Billy and I carefully peeked over the car's door to see if maybe we could catch a glimpse of whatever scared Samwise.

It was another one of those creatures, pure black with light white bone armor on its arms, but this one wasn't a werewolf. It was a bear, and a pretty big one at that. I've seen bears when I used to go to the zoo, seeing the grizzly bears stand up on two legs looking like the biggest thing around. This bear easily dwarfed any grizzly. On four legs it was as tall as I was, and each of its legs was about as thick as a tree. It was chowing down on what looked to be a pile of meat, and I really, _really_ didn't want to know where that meat came from.

 _Grrrrrr…_ (Zombie much, bear?)

Samwise nudged me, and pointed to the store, motioning for Billy and me to split up and cover ground. I nodded, and soon Billy and I were doing our best ninja impressions as we snuck around the literal black bear. It apparently loved whatever meat it was eating, since we were able to take up positions on either far side of the bear. I looked at Samwise, and hoped he wasn't thinking about attacking it.

Fortunately for me, Samwise only wanted us away so he could throw a can back at the store, actually shattering a window. That got the thing's attention, and it charged for the store. Samwise rolled under the car just as it passed, and left out the other side, quietly running over to Billy. Once he made it, we ran like a hellhound from Hades. We needed to put as much distance between us and that thing as possible so we ran far. My legs were once again screaming at me when we made it back to the others. We probably ran for most the way back, so you can imagine how tired we all were. Jessie noticed us first, and told us to find a place to sit while they get shelter set up. I wasn't going to argue, and just plopped down on the ground where I was standing. I was sure, with enough time, that I could have taken the thing head on, but the safety of these people came first.

By the time dusk came around, we were situated in a well enough place, an abandoned house that managed to survive mostly intact. Sure, there were holes in the ceiling, and the walls looked like a blender came through and went nuts, but it was stable, and it was safe. So there we were, all resting comfortably while we ate, mainly in silence while twirling Kronos absently.

Once we were done with that, I said goodnight, went to one of the empty rooms, and curled up on the floor, using what little remained of a mattress for comfort. I didn't even have to wait to fall asleep this time.

 _I was brought to the home of the gods, Olympus. The once blank white marble no longer reflected sunlight, instead shining in the presence of dead celestial bronze. I turned around, nothing in hand, but hiding. Hiding from the dark. The primordial fear of night all beings held rushed through my bloodstream, foreshadowing our impending doom. The darkness crept up the thousand stairs, up the golden doors, over the million-mile fountains, and past the titanic thrones._

 _I was hiding behind my father's throne, once glistening like the sea, but now dulled like rusted iron. The darkness seeped the hall, covering nearly every inch of it, except for the thrones themselves. Fearing for myself, I scrambled up the throne of Poseidon, not feeling any energy coming from it. In a few seconds, I was surrounded, completely entombed by darkness. The throne began to sink, and my heart raced faster._

" _You will fear, for the night has returned, and the day will never come." I heard a voice whisper from all around. I sounded so familiar, yet I had no clue who the hell was talking. The thrones were now halfway submerged in the liquid darkness, tendrils of the stuff practically clawing the thrones downward. I tried to climb on top of the back rest, but my foot slipped, and I fell. The darkness had me, and I sank like a rock, pulled by some unknown force down, down, down._

 _I couldn't feel anything. It was like I was numbed over. There was no heat, no sound, not even the feeling of me breathing. There was nothing here. Not even time dared trespass this plane of darkness. Finally, I felt something. Cold. Like ice had taken over and swam through my veins, pulling me in as I plunged ever down. Then a light, ghostly green and burning in a small sconce. Then another. And another. And another, still. Fires burned in two lines in front of me, showing me where I was. I had been here before, once. I knew this place, even when I ran through with my eyes closed._

 _Nyx, and her house of darkness. The voice whispered again. "Beautiful, isn't it? The darkness hides all things, and yet it doesn't consume, not without purpose." It wasn't Nyx talking, but it sounded pretty much like her._

" _There is no purpose. Not anymore. All that is left, is the dust of the world and darkness." The tendrils pulled me through the halls, once having been alive with nightmares I didn't even see, but now were empty, and dormant. I was pulled along, passed walls covered in more inky black tendrils, passed what looked like a throne of bone and darkness, and into an antechamber. There was nothing in the circular room, except for a nest of this stuff. That was the only way I could describe this place. It was a nest, with thick tendrils pulling from all over, sticking to walls, clining to themselves._

" _It's a gift, one I left for you."_

 _I looked around to see what it meant. One of the tendrils pulsed, released itself from the wall, and dropped to the floor. The next second, something crawled out. It was… a baby werewolf?_

 _I was about to ask if the voice planned to kill us with cuddles, when the room went berserk, tendrils from all over clinging and strapping to the baby thing. I could hear its screams over the crawling wetness, and damn near pissed my dream pants. A few moments later, the hulking mass of darkness retreated, leaving behind a nightmare. It was a werewolf, kind of like the ones I've faced before, but worse. It was bigger, nastier, and was… corrupted, having none of the white armor. It took one look at me, and then it roared. Its face split into four appendages, its tongue slapping out like it wanted a piece of me. The smell it gave off made me want to vomit, but I was more focused on the fact that it was coming towards me._

 _Whatever was holding me in place kept me there, even as it approached. Me and four-mouths stared at each other for hours, before my heart returned to its usual beating, and four-mouths retreated, as if it could not see me._

I spat out the shit that had been gathering in my mouth due to my lack of sanitation. I downed a few gulps of water, letting it flow and forcefully rub my mouth to clean it. When I was done, I spat out the remains on the hard ground, waking up a couple of others. John wiped the sleep from his eyes, and Samwise was mumbling something in his new patio chair.

I chuckled at our group of ragtag survivors, loading the shotgun again. I kept it clean with a few pieces of cloth and water that I'd been given. Due to the son of Poseidon thing, I can constantly "breathe" through my skin, reducing the amount of necessary water intake. Feeling refreshed, we froze at the sound of a large howl. The survivors' eyes turned to the front door, where several heavy thuds landed.

We could hear the light growls and breaths, slowly. Every time someone whimpered, the breathing grew louder. I slowly took out Kronos, bringing out the war scythe mode.

Slowly, I approached the door.

I stabbed through it.

A howl of pain emitted on the other side, followed by several other grunts of surprise. Another thud was heard, and I fired towards it. With a pained shriek, the wolf clutched its head in pain. I stabbed it, Kronos easily cutting it in half. To my right was another. In a swinging motion, the wolf was hit in the face with the butt of a scythe, and immediately decapitated. I twirled the blade again, finishing off the rest of its pack.

"Watch out!"

I sidestepped a claw swipe from a bear, turning the scythe into a khopesh. The blade sliced through, like there was nothing there. The bear had retreated back, a low growl humming through the air. Guess now was as good a time as any to learn how to fight this thing. I began to circle it, and it circled me, both of us stalking around, waiting for the other to strike. I was trying to get the bear in between myself and the doorway, seeing as how my new friends would be able to attack from behind.

"Come on, big guy," I mumbled, twirling the khopesh in my hand. The bear swiped at the air in between us, trying to threaten me. Fat chance of that happening. _BANG!_ A gunshot rang out from behind the bear, said beast rearing up as much as it could and roaring in pain. Samwise had take the initiative and shot it from behind, giving me an opening to rush forward and slice at its chest. I managed to make a deep cut before having to retreat back, the bear bringing all its weight down in a slam attack.

I glanced at the blade in my hand, and was actually surprised to see the same black, oily substance from my dreams instead of blood. That was interesting to say the least, but I had bigger things to worry about than what this thing was made of. I needed to kill it. _BANG!_ Another gunshot, this time from Jessie. I don't know where she got a pistol, but it was enough to draw the bear's attention long enough for another strike. This time I went for a slash at its eyes,

I slashed sideways, hoping to get both eyes in one swing, but it was faster than I realized, and tried to swipe at me, forcing me to twist and get only a grazing shot at its right eye while it gave me a five-line pattern across my stomach. The wounds weren't fatal, nor were they deep, but I didn't want to drag this on for much longer in case I might get an infection. Yeah, I remembered enough from the Apollo cabin's survival care class to keep myself alive, even if most of the stuff I learned wasn't going to help me, anyway.

The bear was now trying to circle me again, forcing me to move unless I wanted to become bear chow. That wasn't exactly highest on my list of priorities, so I decided to do something crazy. I rushed the bear, swiping Kronos in a feint to its face again. The bear took the bait and swiped at me again, but this time I was ready. I rolled under the swipe, brought my shotgun to its mouth, jammed the barrels in, and pulled the trigger. _BOOM!_ The black blood was everywhere, covering everything behind the bear in a show of gore. My arms felt heavy, my chest burned every time I breathed, and I felt like taking a nap right then and there, but I was alive.

I looked over to everyone else, seeing their expressions were either complete joy that we beat one of the bear monsters, or awe that I had the balls to try something so insane. Guess that was me in a nutshell. "So, anyone up for lunch?"

 **A/N: Welcome to the first Chapter of Dust Days! This is a collaboration between Mr.P3pp3r8867. Check out his stories, I tell you.**

 **He's not going to be here in the ANs, but the story will be uploaded on his profile too. We're writing this together, blah blah blah. It's about what happened after Gaea's death caused the world to blow to shit.**


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm A/N:**

 **Goodsir: Well, P3pp, now we sit and wait for the stripp-I mean reviews to come.**

 **P3pp3r: I guess. Ah, it says here on my phone someone called 1-800-HotAsianStrip.**

 **Goodsir: W-wha- No I wouldn't! Uhhh, readers, j-just submit your Omakes, I guess. If you don't, I'll...**

 **P3pp3r: Call 1-800-HotAsianStrip for all your stripping needs! Here, take this coupon from Goodsir, it'll land you a discount! ON WITH THE SHOW!**

 ***answering your reviews***

 **Zombiemaker22: Yeeeeeessss but could you provide some more thoughts?**

 **Deathcorn5: Same with you**

It had been three weeks since we last had any trouble with the monsters. Over the course of those three weeks, we'd been slowly building up a stockpile of supplies, moving from place to place as we tried to find somewhere secure to settle. I hadn't had any dreams since then, so I guess I was in the clear for now. Recently, we'd been following a rumor that there were other survivors somewhere in New York, and that they were trying to start a settlement.

Currently, we were taking refuge in a parking garage. We had a nice fire going, and each of us was enjoying something that wasn't out of a can, for a change. Samwise, Gwen, and Bran managed to snag some actual food from an out-of-the-way diner, one of those places you never really knew about, and practically walked right by everyday. They'd found some steaks, potatoes, and actual carrots, all in a freezer that somehow still worked. So there we were, enjoying an actual meal for once, laughing at stories we were sharing from before the end.

"So, wait… you were an accountant?" I asked incredulously at Bran. He nodded, trying not to laugh too much. "Yup, worked over on Wall Street. I had a suit and tie and everything. Felt like a monkey."

His long, dark hair and thin build didn't fit the look. If I had a say, he was very similar to Nico. Speaking of monkeys…

"You think there'll be monkeys left?"

Gwen considered it for a moment, before answering. "Nah. Animals can sense natural disasters AND run faster than people. A definite higher percentage of them survived."

While I couldn't argue with that logic, did the black animals attack _regular_ animals? I hope not, otherwise we're going to be losing a lot of cattle. What? I still wanted my burgers.

Samwise chuckled as he adjusted himself. "I can tell you with a guarantee that animals would be smart enough to live through this. Mother Nature ain't exactly the type to give up so easily." I had to stop myself from telling him Mother Nature actually had been beaten and that was the whole cause of all this, but I wasn't one for ruining the mood… and there was the possibility he wouldn't believe me. Still, hearing him talk about that brought back some memories, both bad and good. I remembered when I fell into Tartarus with Annabeth while the others went to close the doors from the Overworld. I remembered having lost almost all of my memories, except for Annabeth and how to fight. I remembered holding up the sky while Artemis and Atlas fought each other, an ultimate test of will. I even remember what Annabeth said to me the first time we met. _You drool in your sleep_. Gods, that seemed so long ago now.

Time. Did Chronos exist, anymore? Was _science_ real in the first place? How much of everything we knew actually stemmed from the gods' influence? What could we call real? I looked around, finally seeing the world for what it was without the gods, or the titans, or anything else. Dust, echoes, and death. No grass on the ground, no birds in the sky. Even the winds were silent.

I sighed, my mind finally accepting everything that had happened. It wasn't a bad dream, and it wouldn't go away. I had to go on, for the others, and humanity. Everyone at Camp Half-Blood, and New Rome. _I'm going east, so I guess a few others made it. But still, everything feels just so wrong. It's like this shouldn't even be happening._

Jessie nudged me a little, bringing me back to the present. "You okay, kid?" I nodded and restarted the search for supplies. The broken down cars were thoroughly looked through, although we had no engineer or mechanic to look through them for parts. I only had minimal experience in hotwiring, and don't even talk about engineering.

We got a few first aid kits and earthquake survival kits from the cars, but that was it. My wounds were fine, long ago healed by the water. Kronos sat happily through the satchel, harmless. I'd discovered a while ago that it didn't harm the wielder itself, and… the black beasts were unaffected. That lead the conclusion that they had no soul. Regardless, the scythe cut through them without any disruption.

 _Click_

Our happy hike was interrupted by a swift cocking of guns. I didn't know what they were doing, but you _didn't_ exactly need to cock your weapon for other purposes than intimidation, so…

"Put your hands up! Drop your weapons! And hand over anything you got, too."

Fuck, bandits. Well, we were all bandits, but some people just specialized in it. They were a far cry from the "raider" bandits you'd normally see in like a tv show or a video game about the Apocalypse, but still, not fun. I rolled my eyes as a few of the bandits came to relieve us of our gear. They wore mostly brown clothes, pants, and a vest here and there. All of them had a sort of wraparound cloth mask to keep them mysterious. _Oooooh, spooooky_ , I thought mockingly.

They took everything but our clothes, and only because a howl was heard in the distance. Our guns were taken, our supplies. One person had Kronos, and made a stupid mistake. "What the hell you got a scythe for?" he asked me as he reached into the satchel. The moment he made contact with the ancient weapon, however, and he was on fire. Literally. The power of the scythe burned through him, burned _him_ , and left nothing but a pile of ash in seconds, nur even enough time for him to get a scream out. And that wasn't exactly a good thing for us. Everyone had their guns trained on us.

I reached for one of their necks, holding him in a choke grip, and held the gun to the group of _banditos_. "Put the fucking guns down!" They hesitated. "I said fucking do it, or you'll be short all members!" I moved slowly towards Kronos, kicking it up with my foot. The weapon fell into my grip comfortably.

Immediately, one of the bandits made move to take hostage as well, hoping to defuse the situation.

 _Chink_

I felt Kronos click in my hands, but the blade, now much smaller, was embedded into his skull. With a _shlink_ , the scythe's chain retracted. I held down my surprise down as well, otherwise we'd all panic and die.

"That's what I got a scythe for." I tried my best to hide the fact that I killed _another_ living human being this month, and trying to keep my stomach from doing somersaults.

The bandits fired, drawing curious growls from the creatures. Everyone scrambled for cover, while I ditched the now unconscious bandit in favor of escaping bullets. I held Kronos tight, hoping this would work. I peeked out from cover, trying to recreate the same feeling I felt moments before.

 _Chink_

Kronos' head burst out of the polearm, dragging a long silver chain behind it. It found its mark in the far back bandit, slicing through his head like butter. I suppressed the wince I usually felt when I first killed a demigod, and started retracting the chain. Kronos sailed backwards like a whip, curving like a snake as it decapitated two bandits on the way back. I imagine there was going to be a talk about the killing later, but that could wait until _later_. The bandit's' eyes widened, clearly not expecting the brutal outcome of their raid.

I charged the last two, dragging Kronos behind me in a scythe sweep motion.

" _Legsweeper mode activated."_

My eyes widened as the blade turned and thinned, turning into the shape of an actual agricultural scythe, with the two handles and everything. My charge was already in place, however, as the thin blade cut through the bandits' leg like grass. _Holy shit!_ Kronos swiftly returned to its normal form, extra handles disappearing. I didn't stop there, downing the other with a couple of swipes.

 _Grrrr…_

"Quick, gather all the supplies!" I shouted. The survivors got out of their shock, quickly choosing having supplies over a discussion about my morals. The wolves and bears hopped over cars, crushing them to remove the obstacles. Kronos shot out like a rocket again, hitting the back of the pack, and thinning it by travelling back. I found the chain to be hard to control, like trying to wrestle a cobra (a natural talent of mine).

 _Ding!_

"Owww…." I rubbed my head, not caused by Kronos travelling back at high speeds.

My attention was brought back to leap out of a bear's killzone, which I immediately stopped by cleaving in half. The others were met head on. _Fuck, should have practiced more, should have practiced more!_ Nonetheless, I considered myself _decent_ with the weapon, by the way the beasts were falling at quick speeds. One almost got too close with a survivor, which I tackled out of the way.

"Get out of here!" I yelled, motioning towards the high advertisement post beside us.

I picked up my shotgun from the pile of loot the bandits gathered, and fired at the front of the (now reduced) pack. It clutched its nose in pain, which I quickly corrected by slicing it into ribbons. The last 5 or so monsters charged at once, nothing stopping them from reaching me at once. Kronos expanded, the blade having almost twice the surface area. _What?_ My demigod reflexes already covered it, and in a single swipe, the five were cut down.

"So, you've killed before?" John inquired.

I nodded blankly at him, my thoughts avoiding the demigods and human thugs I'd killed in the past. My short experiences with video games helped... let's just say cope with it before it happens. Video games gave you the instinct to stop hesitating and ignore deaths, we'd tried lots of video game therapy before the war started on the new campers, in hopes they won't go insane after killing something.

Samwise sighed, shaking his head in sadness. I was actually surprised by the way most of them reacted, fully expecting them to be distrusting and stuff. However, I guess taking your supplies and threatening your life AND being an asshole to others left a really bad impression on everyone. A few even patted me on the back. Gwen and Bran were… suspicious, to say the least. We picked up their weapons and the (chopped up) vests, which barely remained in the first place due to the fact that half of them were burnt to ashes. At least we could use what remained as makeshift bandages. Slingshots were a no-go, we didn't have any construction or home supplies for that.

A teenager, no older than 14, picked up a few rocks and pocketed them.

Pretty soon, we found shelter in a few rows of short buildings that remained in decent condition. The brown clouds sailed miles above, and I couldn't help but stare at the sky, despite how ugly it seemed to the common eye. It was a hidden beauty.

The crumbling of paint and the cracked wood signalled us to a more stable home. I kicked the door open, the others unintentionally stepping away from Kronos. _Nice…_

There was a stairwell on my right, with pictures hanged on that remained visible and mostly free of rust. The others called it the "rust" because the dusty wind always seemed to deteriorate whatever it touched. I explored and cleared the rooms, leaving the drawers for other discussion. The kitchen knives were actually left alone, since everyone had, like, five of them. It was something most movies forgot, common things everyone had.

I set up my own mattress in a separate small room, and the moods of everyone quickly improved. All the lost family, all the left alone countries were forgotten. There were many of us here, tourists from other countries, people who just came to make money, even some who just came to visit family. Those who already had friends formed bonds, but those who didn't quickly warmed up too. Survivors didn't sit alone in depression. Survivors gathered around the campfire happily. At least this was the case for my group.

All the faded t-shirts, the sunglasses.

I stirred from my mattress, no drool. It was still dark out, with the sun still below the horizon. Everyone else was still asleep, by the sounds of silence in the house. Careful not to cause too much noise, I made my way outside. The stars were still visible in the sky. Guess not everything was taken when the gods fell. At least the night sky was still beautiful. I could still make out the constellations, too. Orion was still there, with his club high above his head. The Big Dipper and the Little Dipper still hung around. I even saw the Huntress above. Zoe. She was still there. A thought crossed my mind. If Zoe's constellation was still in the sky, would that mean that other places from mythology still existed as well? Could it be possible for the Underworld to still be there? My heart began to race now. If the Underworld was still there, then Annabeth would still be there too! And Mom, and Paul, and everyone! They would all be in the Underworld.

 _CRUNCH!_

What was that? That sound jarred me from my thoughts and brought me back to the harsh world. Something was out there. I grabbed Kronos and brought it out at full scythe mode. _CRUNCH! CRUNCH!_ There it was again. It wasn't too far away, but I wasn't exactly too thrilled about going to investigate a weird noise, at night, away from base. That's how people died in horror movies, and I wasn't about to become another Scream! victim. Still, if it was something that could threaten everyone else, I had to make sure it wouldn't come for us.

I carefully made my way over to where the noise was coming from. It was next to a destroyed strip mall. As I got closer, I was able to hear more sounds. Namely, eating sounds. Squelches, ripping and tearing, even the occasional snort or two. I shook the nausea away. I've heard worse than this when Smelly Gabe was still around. I could handle it. _CRUNCH!_

Mostly. Mostly handle it.

I took refuge behind a broken down car, the first signs of rust visible on its edges. The sounds were louder now, which was a plus for me. Still, I slowly peeked over to see what was happening.

It was a hellhound, gorging itself on the remains of a dark wolf pack. Black blood was everywhere, and I wasn't able to see inside the thing, but judging by the way the hellhound was going at it like a popstar to Starbucks, it was probably safe to say there was a lot of tearing involved. For some reason, the corpse of the wolves didn't evaporate like usual.

I watched the gruesome spectacle for a while, unsure what to do. The hellhound _did_ kill one of those things, but at the same time it was a hellhound, and it wasn't Mrs. O'Leary, either. It was smaller, more about the size of a small SUV, if anything. Its fur was mottled and coated in dried blood. I didn't see any scars on it so I could only imagine where it came from. Hopefully it was just from local wildlife. Scratch that, it probably fucked up a lot of people's' lives.

After about a minute of devouring the corpse, something happened to the hellhound. It began to gag, like it had something lodged in its throat. The heaving only got worse, to the point that _I_ almost heaved. While it heaved, black gunk began to fall from its throat. It looked like it came from the creature, but at the same time it looked like a giant black ball of mucus.

The stuff it was heaving only grew, as whatever came from the hound's mouth collected and combined with the other stuff, until it was about as large as the hound itself. Then it attacked.

Yeah, you heard me. Attacked. Like, come alive and attach itself to the hound's head, attacked. The hound was as surprised as I was, and tried to shake the stuff off. Tendrils crawled from the mass, snaking over the hound as it was dragged into the mass little by little. Now I was horrified. Since when did something like that ever get made? I'm pretty sure not even the gods would want something like _that_ around. It was like watching a train wreck. I wanted to look away, but at the same time I couldn't. Soon the hellhound was completely engulfed by the mass, and I could see it still struggling even from within.

Two minutes of the hellhound struggling passed, with me thinking it was going to break out on several occasions. But that wasn't the case, as it struggled less and less, until finally it stopped. All that was left of the scene was a giant black ball of mucus, and an evaporating wolf. _What. The. Fuck?!_

I was about to leave, to go tell everyone it was a good idea to move out. Not safe to take it on with all these people, after all. It wriggled and writhed, and the next thing I knew, it spat out the hellhound. Only it wasn't a hellhound, anymore.

This thing was a dark as the wolf, with the same red eyes and light amounts of white bone armor as well. It was bigger, too, having grown at least another few feet in height. Now it was fucking huge, well at the size of a garbage truck. _Has it become stronger?_

It looked right at me. Through my soul. I saw darkness creeping up my vision, only this wasn't unconsciousness. It was the shadows themselves, spiny tendrils slowly making its way up my head. I shook myself. "Percy?" Asked Samwise from the darkness of the house.

"Everyone get out of the house! If you have a gun, provide some damn covering fire!"

A deep, guttural bark came from the beast, causing ringing in my ears and shaking my bones it was so damn loud. Samwise saw the thing, lost a little color, and immediately took aim and fired. I was stunned for a moment at why he was firing, but I didn't have much time to think, and decided to charge the beast, Kronos out and ready and my shotgun pointed outward. The beast saw me charging, growled, and went into pouncing crouch. I saw it, and began to run at an angle, firing off one of my rounds into its face. I may as well have been blasting it with salt with the amount damage I did, which is to say _none_.

Samwise proved how good he was with a rifle, as I saw small bullet wounds (if you could call scratches bullet wounds) suddenly appear on its snout and ears. It howled to the sky, before charging at Samwise. I reacted too late and ended up skidding and falling, watching as Samwise fired round after round into the thing's face.

At the last possible moment, Samwise tried to dodge, but the beast was quick and snapped its jaw around his leg. Samwise cried out in pain, spurring me to move faster. I scrambled to my feet, prepared Kronos into Khopesh form, and charged. It shook Samwise around like a ragdoll, before he went flying into the car I was hiding behind earlier. He didn't move. I was still charging when it happened, and I felt a storm of emotions inside me. Rage boiled my blood, panic froze my veins, and light horror gripped my heart at the familiar scene, but I still charged in nonetheless. My body moved on its own as I pulled the trigger, blasting the beast's hind legs with pellets, mainly to get its attention. It worked, seeing as how it turned towards me, with Samwise's leg still in its mouth.

It twisted its head to the side, swallowing the leg whole before charging at me.

It was just there.

I mean, my demigod reaction speed could barely catch up to it, and seeing as I dodged bullets from handguns on a regular basis, this was no small feat.

Kronos was already racing forward by the time I even realized what my body was doing. Kronos scratched it, and by what had occurred, it was evident the soul slashing effect had been stronger than before. The hellhound reared back in pain, leaping back _several meters_ and cracking the ground beneath it. I grinned _grimly_ and shot off with an earthquake at my feet. The hellhound lashed out with a powerful paw strike, but it was blocked by the scythe. I slid back from the force of the impact.

It zipped around at what must have been speeds higher than sound, shifting left and right, from house to house. When it got closer, however, it suddenly appeared _behind me_ , my instincts barely managing to block the white claws. I suddenly lashed out, hoping to catch it off guard.

I didn't.

Instead, the beast yelped and jumped backwards in a cloud of dust, landing on the rooftops with surprising grace. Somehow, the building didn't crumble, but that didn't matter. I leaped up with a jump as well on the black rooftops, not even registering that I did something that once should have been impossible for me.

The hellhound roared with the intensity of a thousand battlefields, before charging swiftly at me, swaying and curving around the tight pellet spread of my shotgun. Only a few rounds managed to scratch it. I cursed and ran, blindly firing behind. As it began to catch up, I spotted a weak point in the structure of a certain roof.

I flipped up and above what must have been _really_ high above the hellhound, which was still hungrily looking at the space I occupied moments before. I grinned midair, brain going at an all-time high, and fired two successive rounds. The roof collapsed, and the hound yelped before rolling left and landing on the ground with a swift thud. I immediately retaliated, firing Kronos at its stomach.

The scythe head sailed true, dragging the chain behind it. I smirked victoriously. Obviously it could only do the _thing_ where it went stronger and faster for a little bit, from the way it started slowing down as it approached before. I had no idea how fast it could recover, but to end it, I had to move fast.

To my surprise, Kronos did its job well. The hellhound struggled for a bit, ignoring the wound in its stomach. It bit back a growl, and weakly jumped up the roof. I walked over to it slowly, stomping on its paw when it tried to attack. I held its head down in a tight grip, choking it slowly. I slowly readied Kronos. With a short 'flick', the hounds' head rolled off, and the rest evaporated away peacefully, in the direction of what I assumed to be the black mist. I briefly wondered if the badass execution would land me any points in the cool book, before I remembered that there wasn't a 'cool book' anymore.

I rushed over to Samwise, Kronos waving behind me like a madman. He spat out a wave of blood, looking me right in the eye with a smile, before slumping over, dead. I shook his head and called his name, but there was no response. _Fuck._ I sent off the hundredth prayer, and soon, the others swarmed over, regardless of the fact that I just killed a dangerous creature.

I blocked out the crying of many people, more concerned about the welfare of the group. Gwen's grim expression darkened as she picked up his rifle, determined to probably avenge his death.

I dodged another strike from John, the frustration in the man's voice was clear.

"Come on, big guy, give it your best shot!" I encouraged, _batting_ away another sway of his modified baseball bat. John was a historian, I soon learnt.

Therefore, warfare was his primary field of study, as he frequently mentioned. He told me that one day, he hoped to be able to lead an army, take back our country from the black beasts that roamed the world.

"Dammit, I knew I should have worked out more before all _this_." John groaned behind his improvised shield. It took a little convincing to get him to stop hiding behind a shield, and it seemed my teaching was somewhat effective.

The aluminum bat, barbed with sharp razors, was not a terrible choice of weapon. He lacked a true blunt weapon, however, as you'd be surprised how sometimes non-lethal is the better way to go.

"Can't do nothing about that." I stepped forward, easily exploiting his stance and disarmed him. Gwen applauded, apparently somewhat impressed I disarmed an armored strong man with nothing but my hands. CQC was not Gwen's first choice, but Samwise had taught her a lot about rifles, and I'd seen her will to uphold his memory.

After the short run-in with the hellhound, I did some more live demonstrations on kitchen knife fighting, as i'd been taught at camp. That kid, what's-his-name actually nailed a couple of throws. I congratulated the kid, and went back to drilling the weaker tourists. Hopefully, with the basic combat training, we'd stand a better chance.

"You ready for another round?" I asked John. Humans could only fight for so long, after all. If you could successfully hold a melee fist fight for a whole minute, I'd be impressed. Some people forgot just how much energy fighting used up.

John nodded and came after me again, this time trying something new. He swung his bat from his far right, and as I dodged it tried to uppercut me with his shield. Clever trick, but unfortunately for him I had plenty of experience with foes using a sword and shield on me - mainly Clarisse whenever she was in a bad mood. Still I had to actually roll back to avoid getting a face full of splinters. John was getting a bit ballsy now, rapidly trying to swing his bat at me, all of which were either countered or dodged. He gave another swing, and this time I decided to surprise _him_. Midway through his swing, I stepped inside the strike, grabbing his arm and giving him a light headbutt, just strong enough to knock him back a bit. With that new opening, I proceeded to teach him what getting crazy in a fight would lead to, and in the next minute he was breathing hard and sprawled out on the ground, his bat resting in his open hand. "Focus on the fight itself, and don't let it get to you, otherwise you'll find yourself in a worse position than you started."

I offered him a hand up, which he managed to grab hold of, and helped him to his feet. He gave me a nod of thanks, seeing as he couldn't speak with the amount of air going in and out of his lungs, and trudged and stumbled over to Gwen, taking a seat next to her and Bran. Jessie was off to the side, cleaning out our gun barrels with a long brush we found while searching in a hunting shop. Most of the ammo and guns were gone, but there were a few maintenance items remaining.

Police stations didn't offer much either. Most people instinctively went to them to get weapons, and we were quite late. All we found were bare skeletons with handcuffs on their wrists. Ironically, about half of them wore what was left of police uniforms. Guessing the inmates didn't get out on good behavior before things went to shit. The sky was mostly clear for a change, but without the clouds the sun was bearing down incredibly. I figured it would have been about 90 degrees at noon, so it was probably about 95 or so now. I had lived in New York all my life, so I was mostly used to it, but some of the others weren't so lucky, to say the least. Thankfully, we had plenty of shade and water, so we were good for the time being. "Okay guys, time for a break! Rest for about an hour or so, and come back here for more training." The seven people that showed up nodded and went off to find somewhere to nap. I had other plans.

I walked by Jessie, giving her a friendly nod, before going off to find somewhere secluded. For the past few days I've let my mind wander over how I could use my powers for more than fighting or sailing. I came up with all sorts of weird ideas, but a few good ones too, mainly trying to use my abilities to try and make fresh water from regular water. It came to me when I was thinking back to how Annabeth would try and teach me about aquatic life whenever we had free time, and she had once told me that fresh water could come from salt water with enough purification. Then I had thought, I control the sea so why can't I just remove the salt and germs and keep the good water. So that's what I've been practicing on.

There was a nice, quiet spot about fifty meters from where we were camping. It was calm, with a few trees nearby, and some very deep puddles. Now I wasn't one for turning down water in most situations, but seeing how the puddles were a dark brown with plenty of algae floating on top, I was willing to pass, but they made for excellent practice spots.

For the next forty-five minutes, I sat there, concentrating on the water in front of me. I could manage to get a decent-sized ball of water floating, and I could feel all the tiny things running around inside it, but whenever I tried to separate them I felt like I was pulling on two industrial-grade magnets with spaghetti. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get them to get out. Little bastards were stubborn, that's for sure. I even lifted a sealed can of water. Well, there was nothing to do with the water itself, but I was testing the limits. My powers, when used lightly, weren't draining at all. Imagine if that was on a bigger scale… If it got to what my imagination was thinking, I'd probably be able to control entire _oceans_ without much effort.

Seeing as how I wasn't making much progress, I decided to head back to our camp. From then on until dusk, we trained, with Gwen and Bran going head to head in a brawl. They were pretty evenly matched, due to their similarities in muscle mass.

I blew off another patch of dust that had gathered on my shotgun. I had no idea what model it was, and it evidently wasn't the best quality. It was a poor quality shotgun, one you would see an American family own, hanged up for display. Despite that, it worked fine. It was a streak of luck that it never jammed on me.

I recalled the first few times I fired a gun, with Chiron adjusting my grip and Luke teaching us different stances. It was the first ranged weapon I fired without hitting my own ass, which was a pretty impressive feat by itself. The noise was a bit disorienting, of course… Yeah, we didn't wear any ear protection. Thank demigod enhanced senses!

 _Crunch_

Have you ever done something out of curiosity as a kid that was probably extremely dangerous, but you thought was a cool experiment? Say, throwing stones at a moving car. That's what I felt like.

I turned my attention to a man sneaking past us. He didn't seem to want to cause any trouble (the pile of rifles isn't really welcoming), hell, he was barely armed. I looked at the cup of water in my hand in contemplation and anxiety. _What to do, what to do…_ "Fuck it," I muttered under my breath. Only chance to try this.

I slowly levitated the cup's contents, amassing the size of a… I don't have anything to compare it to. I held out my hand, moving it closer and closer to the guy… there. The water was _inside_ of him. He jumped slightly when it entered, but found nothing wrong behind him. I even saw a bit of water _sticking_ out of him as I momentarily forgot to move it alongside him. He touched the back of his shirt, but didn't comment on it. I sighed in relief. _Now for the tricky part… sorry, dude._

It started slowly, but I extended my senses into the water, gazing inside of his body. Okay, that was a _little_ stalkerish, but it's for science, right? I waved my hand like a _wave_ , moving the water in rapid motions. The man's breath visibly hitched, hunching over in disorientation. I moved the water upside down, more and more, and sped up. The man fell over, result of the circulation I'd messed around with reaching his brain. I sped over, checking his pulse. _Please be alive, please be alive…_

I sighed in relief. He was alive, alright. Hopefully I would be able to use this to quickly incapacitate large groups… What opened my mind was how _little_ energy that took. I barely felt the tug on my stomach. _Fuck it, I'm the new rambo_. I absently let the water rest on the poor guy, and I quickly hid his body in some comfortable space. Jeez, is this was what a serial killer felt on their first kill? My eyes widened as his body _moved_ by itself, dragging across the dirt. I frowned in concentration, and the man moved, the water inside him dragging him.

Holy bejesus of Olympus, what I could do… Imagine all the cookies I could levitate! And don't even get me started about the soda cans!

I decided at that moment in time, that I, Percy Jackson, had to improve my badass abilities.

The group gathered around the campfire in silence. We'd traversed the wasteland, searching for a place to stay. We were nomads, in every sense and fashion. We hiked the wastes, looking every day for a building with suitable support structure and food. If it didn't, well, tough luck, bitch, sleep in hunger.

"You can't be fucking kidding me! We have to move west, that's the only way we'll ever settle down!"

"Calm down, Percy-" John started, but was cut down by Gwen.

"You need to face reality, Percy, humanity is gone."

"Fuck off! You're telling me that you'll give up a real shot at rebuilding civilization to move around in some fucking dead city?" I argued.

"It's the best for us, Perce, the food-"

"Don't you dare call me that, and me? _I_ am the one that wants the best for us. This nomadic lifestyle, it needs stop. _You_ need to face reality; these cans of perishables aren't going to be around forever."

"Don't be joking, humanity is dead. I get it, you want to rebuild. But I know you weren't here to see it happen. You don't know what it's li-"

"Shut the fuck up! Don't you dare assume for a fucking second that I don't know shit! Hell, I was fighting for the good cause while you dipshits were sitting in your fucking shelters with casseroles on your laps!" I pounded the table, breaking it in half with an astute crack.

I stormed out of the building. If these shitfaces weren't going to be real and build a permanent settlement, what was humanity going to become?

I walked for… I don't know how long. Long enough to have gotten away from the others. I had entered another desolate part of the city (No surprise there) and just found myself storming through a building, hoping to find some distractions.

 _Grrrrr…_

I narrowed my eyes at the source of the growl. My hands shot out, tearing apart the wolf's throat. The pained shrieks of pain from its dying pack members were music to my ears as I walked further and further away from the camp.

As I walked further in, I left more bodies behind me, my clothes completely stained with their blood. My hands were shaking from having slashed through like no problem, Kronos was just humming with energy and excitement. Guess this is what dear old Grandad left me his scythe for: slaughtering. It demanded more blood, and it didn't care where it came from, and I obliged, going through room by room and taking out the wolves by the dozen. My mind blanked, and for a moment I was in peace. I wasn't worried about humanity, I wasn't worried about the others, I wasn't even guilt-ridden over Samwise's death, anymore. I was just doing what I did best. This was one of the best perks of Kronos. I wasn't using it to directly kill things, but the bracelet was influencing some of my actions. When I punched something, sometimes the wound would be a large sickle cut.

By the time there were no more wolves left, I was coated in their blood. Kronos had stopped vibrating which left my hands shaking. I spat out what little blood actually got in my mouth, disgusted by the taste. Seriously, the stuff tasted like rancid eggs and charcoal. I mean I know that it probably shouldn't be a surprise that their 'blood' was disgusting, but still, it was.

I wiped away what little blood there was and looked around to see where I was. In my haste to kill the wolves, I had managed to get myself onto the fifth floor of the building I was in. I don't remember how I got here, and the bodies of the wolves were everywhere, literally in some cases, so that wasn't much help either. _Looks like I get to walk a maze_ , I thought bitterly, feeling everything I had ignored before return with a vengeance. My bitterness and anger towards the others for acting so stupid. We could easily find somewhere good to live, make a settlement and try to restart humanity. It was better than sitting with our thumbs up our asses and trying to find cans.

Yeah, even if it was just a rumour. From all the few scarce stores we ran into on the way here. Still, worth a shot, right? In my anger, I felt a rumble beneath me. I tried looking around, but found no source. I slowly let the realization wash over me.

It was water.

Millions of gallons of explosive force, just sitting under me the whole time. Some of the pipes were broken, but the major framework was still there. I extended my senses over it, feeling it stretch on for miles with no end. I pulled a bit towards me, and the liquid soaked through the earth to respond to my call. The gesture was so familiar i felt almost no tug in my stomach.

I let the smooth liquid purify and run over my skin, caressing the light bruises and anger. I sighed and broke through the window. To anyone else, jumping from a five-story building would likely result in the loss of their life, but I was unharmed from the impact, mostly thanks to the water I carried at my waist dampening the impact… I got empowered every time I was near any water, after all. I shook my head, trying to hold back the years as I knew Leo would have been proud of that pun.

I had cooled off enough _not_ to beat the stupidity out of everyone's souls when I returned, but there was still some tension I was getting from John, Gwen, and Bran. Still, at least we weren't killing each other. Though every time we saw each other we would give each other a rather pointed glare before leaving in opposite directions.

Later that day I went back out to practice my control of water, this time bringing a bottle of the nasty gunk water along since there were no puddles around. I opened the bottle, set it down, and focused. I could feel my gut tug as the water rose out of the bottle and formed a ball in midair. Once again I could feel everything inside it. All those nasty things, and again when I tried to separate them from the water it was a no go. I tried with everything I had, using as much strength as I could spare, but that water just refused to separate itself. Those little things floating around seemed to mock me, and with some frustration I slammed the water back into the bottle. That water wasn't going to be of use anymore, so I knocked over the bottle and watched as the water fell into the earth.

Watching the water reminded me of home, of camp. Back when the only thing we had to worry about was Zeus having a temper tantrum and wondering what quest we would have to go on next. Back before everything went to shit and died. A sigh escaped me, and I lowered my head, frustrated by everything around me, and yet unable to do a damn thing except for either kill men or kill monsters. That is what I seemed to be good at, after all. Killing. I lowered my head again, and sighed. Sometimes I wish this had never happened.

My father had once said something about water being an invincible force… It couldn't be separated with force, you had to ask nicely… At least, that's what I think he said. Never one for lectures, you know? I calmed and slowly soothed the liquid ball, which slowly responded and pressed into a more oval shape. I restrained my excitement, and focused, almost like that meditation crap.

Bit by bit, the bonds holding the two shapes loosened and thinned, until there was actual space between the two, and were separate beings. I suddenly got angry at Gwen's words before, and the left sphere plopped down onto the ground. I sighed and dropped my personal projects. My mental state was almost at its limit, at a constant battle of tiredness and restlessness. If only I could stretch it for a little longer.

We continued without discussion. Gwen would occasionally look over to me, and if or when I made eye contact she would give me a dark look and return to whatever it was she was doing. Bran had become indifferent towards me, which was fine by me. The one that actively tried anything remotely helpful was John, and that was only because I had the most experience in fighting. "Come on Percy, please. We need you to help with the monsters. Ever since Samwise…"

He didn't need to finish the sentence. I knew. Ever since Samwise died _under my watch_ things had gotten worse for us. Gwen was nowhere near as good a shot as Samwise, and I wasn't one for trying anything other than my handy shotgun. Our ammo count was dwindling now, with me having to take the front with Kronos to cut down as many as possible with John usually going one-on-one with one of the weaker monsters. I figured if he had real experience every once in awhile his determination to stay alive would ignite a fire inside him and his inner warrior would come out.

Still, travelling hadn't been easy when most of the people I cared to know about didn't exactly appreciate my being there. I firmly believed having a settlement was the best way to go, and whenever John brought up the argument I always made it a point to make sure everyone knew where I stood.

One night things were at the boiling point, with myself and Gwen finally talking to each other. Well, more like having a shouting match. "Why are you so hellbent on trying to find a place to settle?" Gwen shouted at me, slamming her hands on the table between us. "Because humanity's best chance is in all of us trying to build something! Not move from place to place while we die off one by one!" It was true. Whenever we made a stop we risked losing someone to the monsters or the raiders that would somehow follow us. A few times we had a couple of close calls, but more than once we've had to make a grave for someone.

Gwen growled at me, looking me dead in the eye as she yelled, "You would have us make a huge target for every monster and bandit out there!" Gods this woman was stubborn. "I'm wanting for us to find a home!" I shouted back, doing my best not to take Kronos and end this discussion right then and there.

Jessie was our mediator, mainly because John wasn't sre who to side with. Honestly, I couldn't blame him, either. The guy just wanted what was best for everyone, even if it cost him everything he had. "What would Samwise say about this?" Jessie finally spoke up, and with that statement effectively shutting us up as well. I couldn't look at Gwen anymore, too ashamed by my own failure to even look up. The silence was deafening. Jessie pressed on. "He'd be wanting us to work together, to figure this out as friends and actually make something of this. Now I don't know whether or not Samwise would have wanted to keep moving or stop and try to make something from all this, but he wouldn't want us at each other's throats."

I hated it when people made points like that. It always hit me right in my heart like a railway spike. I couldn't see Gwen, but I assumed she was the same way. Samwise was important to all of us, and Jessie was right.

But to settle or be a nomad…. The rumours of nature growing back west were getting weaker. Whenever we travelled, everyone made a conscious effort to stay clear of Kronos. Yeah, after he touched it and was burnt to ashes, no one fucked close to it.

"Make way! Make way for our father and lords!" A crooked voice cried out.

They were your stereotype southern Americans. Light clothing, hunting weapons, heavy accent, and probably racist somewhere in their heads. They were pretty normal…

"Life and death! The chains of death! The halo of life!"

Other than that, they were also your average cult. Strange symbols, mostly normal, but probably dressed up as ice cream cones and danced around a campfire after dinner. The old man's shamble voice trembled with excitement.

"Behold, brother! I bring you the words of the father!"

I nodded at Gwen, who agreed only because a crazy man was dancing in front of the group.

"What's your business here?" John asked with a slight edge to his voice.

"Fear not, brother. I bring you no wrath. I only ask you if one thing."

"And that is?" Gwen asked with an impatient tone. The glaring gazes of our entire group didn't scare him the slightest, which was enough to put me in a suspicious mood.

"Of course, to join the father in his holy pilgrimage of this land!" He shouted in joy as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

As if on cue, a… Parade of trucks, SUVs, and gunmen, all painted with that black and white symbol roared into view, marching in a line. Hell, there was even a horse!

The "army" of 150 or so's attention turned to us, and I noticed the immediate tensing of shoulders at this turn of events. How did they get here so quietly?

Two guys, probably leaders, hopped out of their respective jeeps. As they approached, I got a better look. Their faces were average, like citizen average. However, the serious looks on their faces told a different story.

"Hold it there, citizens. I apologize for the… Strange behaviour brother Sid may display.

"He's your brother?" I asked.

The man with the orange goggles [and a gun] chuckled, before replying.

"No. This is simply how we refer to each other in the order."

"What order?"

"Ah, I believe Sid has not introduced us yet? We are the Order of brotherhood."

"..."

"We believe in the true gods, the only gods. Life and death. Our commands are to uphold the true belief, and we ask you today, as strangers united by the cause of survival, to join our cause."

Everyone stilled. A legit fucking cult? I felt anger, anger that these sons of bitches were sitting down begging to be fed from two brothers while we were survivors. I couldn't control it, I sort of wanted to stop it.

But I couldn't.

Under Gwen's panicked gaze, I dove forward and knocked the assault rifle from the orange glasses guy's hands, and grabbed it for myself. I held the gun up to the large cult, and used my free hand to hold a kitchen knife to orange's throat.

"Stay down! Stay the fuck down!" I yelled, my own heart beating faster than a machine gun.

Time slowed down.

My eyes widened further as a few cultists opened fire, leaving a streak of white and red.

They fell.

At least six on our side, two or three for them… Fuck!

Ah, should've known cultists were nutters… I grunted in rage as I punched orange in the stomach, and despite the lack of a weapon in hand, it created a large wound, like a sickle. _Kronos…_

I opened fire on the cultists, the short 3.5 seconds of gunfire mowing down at least a few of them. At this time, most people's survival instincts kicked in, and our group dashed to cover, leaving me in the open.

I growled In anger, and whipped out Kronos, the transformation blocking several shots. Time sped up again, and I let the weapon loose, cutting apart an entire SUV and any inside. The temporary cover created by the flying wreckage gave me a chance to rush at the horseman, and kick the goon off.

 _Hey, it's Percy Jackson!_ The horse shouted. I responded.

 _Alright. But I do get the blessing of Poseidon, right?_

I nodded. Apparently, demigods could bless animals of their domain to be… Much better. Go team bulletproof blackjack! I placed my hand on the brown horse, letting some of my power roll through it.

"Jack" neighed, and immediately was met with a flying grenade. He batted it away with a sway of his head, and the shell of the launched explosive landed harmlessly on the wrecked pavement.

I hopped on Jack with an effortless stride, and spun Kronos, stabbing it into the ground butt first.

Time slowed.

No, it literally slowed. My vision was blurred in a ray of gold, and the explosions and gunfire and yelling ceased to monster-like growls.

A bullet leisurely sailed towards me, appearing to be slower than a sword slash. _Whoa._

Experimentally, I poked at it.

The lead projectile moved back, and the force of the impact sent a visible wave of force around it. I turned to the other bullets, batting each one of them away in a small explosion. _Please last a little longer…_

Luckily, it did. I ran up to a cultist, and punched him in the nose. My eyes widened as a fountain of liquids broke out of his face, and a small wave of visible air had formed at the impact. His face was far too scrunched up, like someone has sucked his brains out from the back. I winced and decided a more friendly approach was best.

I dashed to each of the cultists, slapping their weapons away (ah, broke an arm) or giving light taps (shit, punched through his stomach).

Was this how Kronos destroyed celestial bronze? After all, it was indestructible. Could he have just slowed down time for everyone else, and used it to amplify his own force? I winced again as one of my attacks met so much air resistance the vehicle was knocked away before my fist even landed.

Apparently, my _own_ time was speeding up occasionally as well, probably why I was leaving behind trails of white as I moved. I looked back at the carnage I had caused. Several webs of cracks and craters had formed underneath my own step… I felt the urge to return to Kronos.

I plucked Kronos from its original spot, ending the time dilation. I hopped on Jack. I winced yet again as an ear shattering explosion rang out, marking the deaths of countless gunmen/women.

 _Mass murder at its finest, eh?_

 **A:N/ Percy, what have you done? Anyways, everyone, don't forget to review! *Chuckles evilly**

 **Goodsir: Don't be afraid to tell us what you think! We will happily answer any and ALL PMs and reviews. Well, let me handle the PMs…**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: And I'll handle the death threats! Until next time: DEUCE!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: *Humming Ode to Joy enthusiastically while working under a sheet with the label 'SECRET PROJECT! NO TOUCHY!' taped haphazardly onto the side* We've got a new chapter!~ And it's a big one!~**

 **Reviews:**

Another gunshot ricocheted off the ground right next to my feet. I fired back from my collected pistol, not really aiming but trying to draw away the attack from the remaining 50 or so enemies.

I was met with a response of several bullets, luckily I either blocked them or ducked out of the way.

It was dark out when they gave up the chase, having lost two thirds of their original numbers.

"What the fuck was that?" Gwen snapped.

"Protecting our group."

"Percy, it doesn't make what you did right! You attacked first! All the people that died today, all _our_ people that fell, they are on your head!" She tried to slam against me, but I reversed her attack on her, using her own momentum to pin her to the ground.

She thrashed about, trying to throw me off, but she wasn't like any of the monsters I've fought before. She was only human, which meant she didn't have the strength to compete. I grabbed her once, and pushed her into the ground again, this time shutting her up. "If you would shut up and listen for a second, you would know that I already feel the guilt of having those people die." My voice was cold and harsh, but I needed for this girl to listen.

"Those cultists would have attacked sooner or later, because you don't go around carrying arms like that and preaching unless you want to kill the people that wouldn't agree with you. And even if we outran them, you saw how many there were before. They would have hunted us down like dogs. We lost a few good people, I know this, but it was thanks to me that those clowns lost most of their support and had to retreat."

Already I could feel myself losing it. My mind felt like it was being slowly crushed under the weight of Olympus, but I had to press on. "This is why we need to settle. If we had fortifications we would have lost barely anyone, if anyone at all." She stopped thrashing now, so slowly I stood up, letting her have her freedom.

I looked down at her with the same look Kronos once gave me. She froze instantly as she looked me in the eye. Kronos was in my hands, having taken its original form. No one dared move, and that was just what I wanted. "I'm the one protecting this group, Gwen. I'm the one with the most fighting experience, the one with the most monster kills, and the one that will continue fight even when everyone else is gone."

No one spoke against me as I left the building. I needed to cool off, and the best way I knew how to do that was to kill monsters. They didn't think like humans, and they certainly didn't act like animals. They were, in every sense of the word, monsters, even the newer black shadow-looking ones.

I walked until the stars were out. I don't know what it was about night that brought out monsters or why they were more aggressive at night but at that point I only wanted them to come out to die. It wasn't long before I heard the howl of the wolf monsters. I could see their red eyes in the distance, easily a good sized pack coming for me, crawling through the ruins like vermin. I readied Kronos in my hands, the scythe humming with excitement. Not a moment later, I charged.

The cracked moon was high in the sky by the time I returned to camp. I was coated from head to toe in black blood. My clothes had some tears in them, and I had a couple of scratches that would need some healing later, not to mention Kronos was steaming with how much fresh blood it had taken in. I walked by some people that had stayed up late. Judging from their expressions I was either a walking wreck or a walking nightmare. Either way, I was tired.

My bed was where I had left it from before. Kronos dropped to the ground with a CLANG, not bothering to shift it back to bracelet form. After all, who would touch it? I dropped onto my bed, letting sleep take me.

 _I knew I was dreaming the second I saw a lantern with a face in the fire. It wasn't a regular face that most people would have. It was just two eyes and a mouth. It was stuck like it was screaming, but I didn't hear anything. Still, this dream wouldn't end unless I walked, because that's how demigod dreams went. So I grabbed the lantern and began walking. At least this time I could see where I was going._

 _I was in ruins. No, seriously. Wrecked walls, a ceiling of debris, and torn floors were all around me. It felt… familiar, but I couldn't quite place my finger on it. I swear, if I was watching this through another person's eyes I'm going to lose it… again._

 _I walked for what felt like forever, going through a maze of broken furniture and shattered glass before things started to get weird. And coming from me, a man who enjoyed Sharktopus, that was saying something. The walls were still there, but they were coated in sludge. Strings of the stuff were crawling over the walls like veins, getting thicker the deeper I went. Another ten feet or so and I had to duck under what looked like a sludge support beam, like a strand on steroids that attached itself to two walls._

 _I started to hear sounds again, just like last time. The squelching of raw meat falling onto pavement came to mind, but it had a sharp PING! It was like metal hitting stone, too. Going against me senses that were screaming at me to bolt, I went farther in, determined to find out what the hell kept dragging me back._

 _It wasn't long before I was in that room again, the one with Split-Lip werewolf. Only this time, it wasn't there. More pods were all over the place, looking like a knock-off set from the Alien movie, only these things looked like bubbles ready to burst. I stepped by one just as it moved, and I admit I was a bit squeamish from having having a moving egg sack by my feet, but I pressed on. Beside me, I saw one of the wolves eating… something, white and protein-ish. I hated being in this place. It felt like being in Tartarus all over again. Oh, wait…_

 _Back in the antechamber, up on the wall, I saw something that wasn't there before. It looked like a cocoon, but… it was misshapen. Like a butterfly cocoon that grew thirty times larger, decided to attach itself to a wall with some of the surrounding gunk, and had an arm… sticking… out. I was in a nest, I realized. A monster nest that bred these things in packs._ Help _, a voice whispered from the cocoon. Now, I may not be the smartest demigod out there, but even I know when a strange voice asks for help in a nightmare like this, it was either bad or desperate. Never a good thing for me, either way._

 _The arm shot up, like it was reaching for me, when I felt something pull me back like a slingshot. I flew through the building's debris like a bullet, leaving behind the nest and being shot out into the night. The ground caught me, and I went rolling a few feet before coming to a stop. I looked around, now realizing why this place was so familiar. It was the Empire State Building. The black sludge was crawling up from behind it, like a horror movie gone wrong. The moon in the sky was still shattered, but this time it was blood-red._

I woke with a start, panting and sweating as the daylight streamed in through my room/tent's window. I stumbled out of the shelter, throwing away the now dirty sleeping bag. _Can't you last a little longer?_ My morning thoughts were interrupted by several people standing in front of me.

"We've decided on moving west, as you have insisted."

I froze. Why were they doing this? Was it a trick? Or had they simply decided I could easily kill them, so respected my wishes? My eyes narrowed to tight slits, and thought of my dream from before.

"Alright."

"The hell?" Billy ran his dirty fingers through the map yet again, not being able to process why we were here again. Despite everything being pretty flat, the continents were… wrong. New York, which we had passed so long ago, now stood in front of us, the rim of decay over the city exit seemed so nostalgic.

"Halt there in the name of the lord! This is sacred land of death himself!"

Ah, life, are you fucking with me? At least they didn't recognize us...

"Hey, they're the ones who killed Sid's crew!"

Annnnnd my luck was gone.

 _GRRRRRRR…_

Goods gods, what am I doing wrong?

Two hours later had myself and a few others panting and sweating as we scavenged the battlefield for useful equipment. The cultists were crazy, but they were pretty well armed, and had some ammunition to spare, so we grabbed what we could. The monsters didn't really offer us anything other than disappearing corpses. Still, it was ironically easier to deal with the cultists while everyone was fighting the monsters. As odd as it was, they attacked the cultists more than us. Hell, some of the cultists took joy in that fact and let themselves be slaughtered. Reminds me of Ares' cult… Little bastards.

Still, we had a bigger problem to deal with. New York was ahead of us (which should have been technically impossible seeing as how we were more towards the western end of Pennsylvania) and if my dream was even remotely correct, there was a hive of those things waiting for us in the Empire State Building. I could see the remains even from where I was standing.

"I swear this world just gets weirder and weirder," John mumbled.

"What did you expect from a man with a scythe that burns people when touched?" Gwen countered.

Yeah, she had a point. Any direction I went in was sure to have some weird shit waiting. As we approached the now more visible city, I got a better view than last time… We passed that parking lot, where we first met, as pointed out by somebody.

"Take cover!"

We didn't need to confirm who said it, but the cry was universal. We all ducked for the nearest piece of garbage that could shield us. I swear the Fates must have left a system in place designed to screw me over as much as possible, because there was one of the black bear monsters in the parking lot now. It was easily twice the size of the average bear, and most likely twice as mean.

I jerked my head towards the others, and they nodded in return, firing upon the animal with fierce determination. I charged from the other side. Wouldn't want to get in line of that friendly fire, right? The line of bullets stopped as I approached it. The bear grunted, shaking off the lead projectiles that buried deep into its skin.

The bear lunged with one paw, and I hooked Kronos under its wrist, cutting it off with a continuous motion. The bear howled in pain, and hopped forward. _Shit._ I was immediately met with the force of almost-a-truck, and sent backwards several feet. I immediately got up, and immediately got down again, due to the barrage of bullets that raced towards the bear. Several hit its face, but there wasn't much visible damage.

The bear lunged again with its remaining paw, and I had to visibly restrain myself from face-palming. How stupid was this thing? I hooked Kronos under its arm again, and dismembered the arm. Not giving it any mercy, I slashed again and again during its dazed moment, and decapitated it with one strike. Ha, take that, you stupid-

GRRRRRR…

Fuck my life.

I looked up and saw… a crow. Yes, well, if a crow was the size of an adult eagle. I rolled out of its clumsy dive, and fired a shot towards it. Annnnnd it missed.

John took a few shots at it, but the damn thing rolled out of each one, and… spread its wings? A flurry of small feathers shot towards John, and he was confused momentarily before bringing up his shield again as the feathers _embedded_ into his shield. My memory was immediately brought back to Ares' feather shooting birds.

Did these fuckers come here for round two?

Well, they were going to get it.

I ran behind the vanishing corpse of the bear, using what little remained of it as cover from the deadly feathers. You'd think a bird that fired feathers wouldn't be so great at flying right? Wrong. The bird's feather regrew as fast as it shot them, which meant it was going to be a nightmare if we didn't take it down. Once the bear's corpse was gone, I made a mad dash for the nearest car, baseball sliding my way behind it the last few feet. Stupid of me, but still awesome looking.

John began to yell at the thing, calling it names I'm sure would have given my mother a heart attack. If I had said any of those words, there was not a place _anywhere_ I could run fast enough. Not even Zeus himself could have protected me from Mom's wrath. Still, his swearing and name calling got the bird's attention. It began to rain feathers at him and Bran, which gave me ample time to aim my last shot and fire.

The shotgun went off in my hands, and I'm pretty sure that some of the buckshot managed to hit the bird, but not enough to bring it down. And not only that, but boy was it pissed at me. I knew it was angry when it gave a screech like a Fury and tried to dive bomb me. I scurried under the car, not wanting to be the oversized worm in the situation, and my plan was to have it hit the ground when it sped up fast enough to not pull up. Well, the second part of my plan went down the drain when I saw that bird turn on a dime.

For a second, I was actually impressed. Most birds would have crashed and/or burned right there, but this thing was a special breed of bird. Sadly, even though I thought it was cool, it had to die. I rolled out from under the car, Kronos now as the small scythe and chain combo. "Hey Bird Brain!" I shouted. I know, I know, calling a bird a bird brain would be like me calling kelp seaweed, but hey, shouting at it was apparently the best way to get its attention, and it worked.

The bird screeched again, and went for another dive bomb. I counted in my head, _One Mississippi, two Mississippi,_ and launched Kronos at it. It was too close to go anywhere, even with its amazing turning ratio. The scythe blade struck up with a wet thud, and the bird fell dead at my feet. The body vanished about as fast as the bear, so Kronos' chain had pulled back the scythe blade in a few seconds.

I looked around the area, hoping that that was the last of them. I didn't spy any other black beasts with evil eyes and white bone armor, so I figured that for now we were in the clear. "Clear!" I called to the others. They peeked around from their cover, and slowly began to join me in the middle.

"That was probably the weirdest thing I've seen, yet." Bran mumbled as he reloaded his rifle. Gwen grunted in response and did the same, wiping away whatever black blood that had managed to get on it. John gave me a pat on the back. "I'm just glad we've got you on our side, Percy." I nodded. "Same to you guys. I don't want to think how long I would have lasted on my own." Truth be told, I could have probably survived quite well on my own. These monsters may have been big and rather new, but they were _sort of_ similar to the monsters I used to fight. The wolf was just a retarded hellhound, that bear was easily a weaker version of a giant. The birds? Yeah, like someone tried to make Ares' feather-shooting birds, but messed it up.

I sighed, and had Kronos go back to bracelet form. We were safe for the time being, and we trekked on. The walk through the dead city was quiet, to say the least, which had me more on edge than anything else. We tried our best to stay towards the outskirts as best we could, but I could tell we were moving ever so slowly towards the Empire State Building, and the nest that lay within.

By sundown, we were about three blocks away from it, having begun to set up camp. Jessie was keeping watch over the few kids we had in our large group, while the rest of us began to set up defenses and sleeping mats inside an abandoned apartment complex. John, Bran, Gwen, some guy named Steven, and I went from room to room, floor by floor, checking for any monsters. When we saw none, we then helped everyone else set up. By the time it was dark out, we already had everything set up and good to go. I helped keep first watch, patrolling the first floor with three other people while everyone else slept two floors above us. Every time I reached the doors in the front lobby, I would stop for a few seconds, look to see if there were any monsters outside, and then look for a moment at where Mount Olympus used to be.

It was a kick in the ass to know that where the gods of Greek mythology used to reside, was now a festering den of monsters. I was never a real fan of the gods in the first place, but seeing that building reminded me of all my friends, and that I was probably the last of the demigods. Come to think of it, why were there no new gods within the past 2000+ years they have been absent in our world?

As I patrolled, a thought began to worm around in my head. It was about that dream, and how there was something in that nest. I was curious about the nature of the… thing that probably resided there. After all, a dream had multiple interpretations. Taking a dream far too literally was a bad idea. Sometimes, it was even an omen or metaphor. But whatever it was, I probably had to go in the nest and find it. The hand reaching out was a pretty universal symbol for "help" or something along the lines of that.

That, and hopefully take out the monsters at the same time. I honestly didn't know if that would tstop the monsters from coming after us, but hopefully they were smart enough to understand the message. Destroying a nest of roar things would also send a message to the bandits who _tried really hard_ to take our things (poor kids) and those fanatical asshats that kept trying to 'convert' us.

"Hey, Jackson, over here!" Bran cried.

I turned my head to Bran, who motioned me over. My breath shook as I took in the full visage of the tower. The Empire States building was only a memory of what it once was, now covered head to toe in black matter that crawled up like vines all over the structure. Several tendrils and limbs lay limp on its side, apparently harmless. What was interesting was the… things on the top, and the organic doorway that folded up for several… boars?

The rogue animals sniffed the air, as if trying to find something. It couldn't find us, right?

They looked right in our direction.

Sigh, I guess they were animals? Animals had much better smelling and hearing, so much that an owl could hear your heartbeat from halfway across a forest. The surprisingly armored boars ran, with not much armor at all, other than the thin layer of white, and the small spikes that adorned its face.

Still, I brought Kronos up, ready to strike if necessary. I didn't want to risk anyone else for a distraction, and seeing as how I wanted to take out the nest, I figured now would be a good as time as any, especially when I could kill two birds with one stone.

Bran kept his eyes on the group of monster hogs while I decided to make a visit to our storage for a few 'tools.' You see, a while back we'd come across this broken down military vehicle. One of those big APC things. All the weapons were taken, as well as most of the ammo, but some of the supplies still remained. We managed to find some working radios, a box of flares, and fifty pounds of C4, with the timers and everything. No idea what they were doing with fifty pounds of explosives, but we took the blessing nonetheless.

We kept the C4 under the flares, mainly to hide them in case anyone decided to try and raid us. I found the box easy enough, grabbed about ten bricks of C4, grabbed an empty bag from a closet, and went to work. I took thirteen flares with me, as well, seeing as how it was night, and that den would have most likely been darker.

Once the flares and C4 were secure, I went to find Gwen, who was in the front lobby with Bran. Good, I could tell them both my plan and then immediately go. "Gwen, Bran. I heading out." They both turned faster than lightning and looked at me as if I had finally lost it. Although, I'm pretty sure I lost it a few weeks back, probably right after all this started.

"Are you freaking serious?" Bran quizzed, his look telling me he was either curios about what I was doing, or wonder whether or not I was suicidal. To be fair, to a regular human the mission I was going _was_ suicidal, but demigods did stuff like this all the time. I had experience, a powerful weapon, and instincts that only came with fighting monsters on their home turf. I survived Tartarus, I could survive this.

"Yeah. I'm going to provide a distraction, take those boars out, then blow up the nest inside the Empire State Building." It was nowhere near how well a plan from an Athena demigod would have been, but then I usually followed simple plans easier. And what was simpler than taking both the boars and the nest?

"Wait, there's a nest in there?" Gwen asked. "How do you know?"

"I'm guessing that since there's a lot of that black growth all over the place that there would be a nest. And I've seen a couple of monsters there before I met you guys, so what's stopping them from making a nest all this time?"

Gwen shook her head, not believing me for a second. "Look Percy, I know you want to be a hero and all, but we have no way of knowing if there really even _is_ a nest in there. For all we know, the monsters could be using it as a temporary place to rest, like we are."

Bran looked back and forth between us. I could tell he was torn between believing me, and siding with Gwen. It wasn't hard to figure he was very _fond_ of her, but whether or not she knew, was… not really important. We had too much to handle, and relationships were not a good addition to an ever-growing list of problems.

"I think… we should let him go." Bran finally said, Gwen snapping to him in complete awe. "You can't be serious, Bran! Even if there is a nest in there, Percy's just one guy."

"Yeah, one guy that's scarier than any monster we've come across so far. I bet he could handle it."

Gwen shook visibly as she tried to control herself. "Percy… please..." It took me a moment to realize that Gwen was genuinely worried about me (or simply worried about losing our best fighter). I knew Samwise's death go to her, but I never figured she cared for me. I sighed, bringing her and Bran closer. "Look you guys, I'm used to this sort of thing; Actually, before everything went to shit, I was doing stuff like this all the time." Both of them looked at me with complete confusion, but I continued on to prevent them from thinking about it too much.

"Trust me when I say that I can do this. Besides, it'd be better for me if I went alone. Doing something like this is not something I want anyone else to do." Gwen as absolutely stone still, and Bran was looking at me as if he were preparing a eulogy for when things went south. I just gave them a grin, and went out the front doors. The boar monsters were now following me with their eyes, and I just couldn't resist myself. I found a relatively built up pile of rubble, climbed to the top, and called out, "Your mothers were tasty bacon!" I'm not sure if it was just the sound of me yelling, or if they actually understood the insult, but I heard one boar roar, then another, before a whole chorus of boars were rolling after me. Yeah, literally rolling. Honestly, I'm beginning to think these monsters were smarter than the ones I was used to, or at the very least smart enough to know how to use their abilities.

I took off from the rubble pile, taking a flare and striking it. A bright red glare emitted from my hand, and I ran in the opposite direction of my friends. Phase 1 was a go.

The farther I ran, the more I saw how much New York had changed. The black mist still hung off in the horizon, but everywhere I ran I saw more of that black growth climbing over walls, cars, really anything that was left standing. Most of the buildings that were intact before were now torn down and broken. I hit a four-way intersection and turned left, hoping to draw the monsters towards the nest. Up ahead I saw a wall that was dangerously close to collapsing, held up only by the stands of monster growth that clung to it.

I grabbed Kronos and it was already transformed into the kusarigama (a name I could not even hope to pronounce but only knew because the scythe told me… I think.). The scythe blade sailed from its hilt with a flick of my wrist, and cut through the largest two of the strands. The rumbling sound told me the wall was coming down, so I ran as fast as I could. The wall broke and began to crumble just as I was about to reach the other side, the bacon patrol right behind me. The squealing that came two seconds after told me most of the boars had been crushed.

I looked back to see all but three had been crushed, and said three were stunned from being so close to the crumbling wall. They rubbed their faces on the ground, trying to get the dust out of their eyes. Not one to waste an opportunity, I had Kronos go khopesh, and proceeded to slash and hack like a deranged Old Macdonald. The wild animals fell apart into fine slices before my eyes.

Now, to go in or blow it to bits… that was the question. Of course, to go in. Who knows what treasures laid ahead? Would it be like a game dungeon, and there would be a cool boss and loot? If that was the case, then yes please. I brought out Kronos and cut open the thick doors of black matter, after finding out it didn't open to unwelcome visitors.

I flicked on the headlamp and rubbed my hands all over a splash of water, feeling the dirty liquid give me some strength. I checked my shotgun again, fingering the black tape that secured a light to the gun. I was running dangerously low on ammo, despite the fact that shotgun shells were some of the most common weapons of the average American citizen. Problem was, most people used shotguns in the early days, and they ran out _really_ fast. With no serious war effort and high gun control, there was no stockpile of weapons lying around like _Fallout_.

With little space, my best weapon of choice was the sickle, and occasionally the khopesh.

It was awkward, to say the least, to wield a shotgun _and_ a sickle. It became such a nuisance, I put the gun away, brandishing the sickle blade instead. I steadily tread forward, noticing the general lack of light. My lamp landed its sight on the ever pulsating walls, weaved from thousands of tendrils. Now, what was that camp lesson about structural weaknesses again? Oh wait, that was the last step of the plan. My main goal was to blow up the _breeding_ things themselves, not the entire building, unless everyone wanted to die, crushed by an American icon.

I could live with everything here dying, but the others… that was a risk. I looked behind me one last time, eyeing the retreating group. I had to make this quick, since I hadn't told them of my actual intentions, to explore the whole thing and follow my prophetic dream, instead of killing everything.

The explosives I kept in the satchel were called "plot points" as Billy had insisted. I hissed at the lack of light, despite my flashlight, and chucked the flare. There wasn't much in the terms of addition, more the lack of furniture. The familiar elevator to Olympus was closed off, hidden from sight. The desk in front of it was slowly being consumed, the black matter covering it like a blanket.

Several curious snorts drew my attention, and I shot Kronos at it. The head sailed true, finding its mark in a wolf. Several, as many as six popped up, excited at this new revelation of human flesh. I immediately noticed the difference in these ones… they weren't the fresh black-and-red ones we faced, but rather the rare white armored ones. I had dubbed them "elites" simply for the sake of it, since only they seemed capable of having the armor… still easy game, though.

I kicked one away, and I heard an audible 'snap' as its jaw shattered into fragile pieces. I swung Kronos in its scythe form over and around my head, bisecting all but two. I punched them, and the beasts recoiled, soon met with a diced fate.

 _Chchchc_

I turned my head to find two descending spiders, covered in thin plates of white. The large animal worthy sized monsters crawled over slowly. _They can be insects too?_

I rubbed my hands all over the hard surface of the black building in an attempt to discard the blood. Well, at least those things didn't have spider guts. That would really _suck._ I groaned again and looked around the first floor, killing the occasional monster and trying to find something that would lead me downwards. Small tunnels were everywhere but two things prevented me from using them. First, there wasn't a way in Hades I would try and slide down a growth-infested tunnel that would severely limit my mobility with monsters everywhere, because I've watched Alien before and that plan was the absolute worst. Secondly, those tunnels were barely big enough for me alone to fit through. There was no way I was going to leave my bag behind.

My eyebrows twitched as I was met with the sight of some kind of open floor elevator, key word being open, it didn't have anything to stand on! The black tendril was dangling there limply, as a foresight to the never ending elevator shaft, which seemed to stretch on for miles. It was like looking at the entrance to Tartarus all over again. I remembered my dream where I was pulled through the House of Nyx, and that's when I thought it probably _did_ lead to Tartarus, specifically Nyx's place.

I sighed and stared at Kronos. It couldn't possibly…

I shot the chain blade towards the wall of the elevator, watching with satisfaction as it locked into the wall with a nice _CHTHNK!_ I gave it a good tug to make sure it could handle my weight, and when it didn't even budge, I decided to do one of the stupidest things in my life, easily within the top ten on my list.

I jumped.

I didn't go back for a running start, nor did I give myself time to think. I just jumped. I fell into darkness, the air around me cold and stale. This was definitely how it was when I was falling with Annabeth. Before long, the chain went taut, and I swung there for a few seconds, wondering if I really was as crazy as everyone thought I was.

Well, even if I was I had nowhere else to go. My options were either back up into the (probably) monster-infested lobby or down into the monster-infested pit below me. A rock and a hard place. Still, I had made a promise to the others, and if I didn't get rid of this place soon, there'd be no stopping the monsters.

I squinted to get a bearing of my surroundings. I was hanging in a space at least twice the size of the elevator shaft, which meant I could just barely make out the wall in front of me. I gathered as much spit as I could, and let it loose to see how far it would fall. Not really the brightest idea, considering I had flares, but give me some credit. Most of the things I did in real life stemmed from my knowledge of movies. Still, no sound of spit was to be heard, so I shrugged off the backpack strap from my free arm, and twisted the bag around until I had it in front of me.

Doing the best I could, I managed to yank the zipper open. I grabbed the closest flare, gripped the cap with my teeth, and struck the flare, casting the area around me in an ominous red glow.

The walls below the elevator reminded me of cavern walls, all blank yet rough looking at the same time. I spat out the cap, and dropped the flare along with it, now really hoping that the floor wasn't too far down. The flare fell for one second… two seconds… three seconds…

After about ten seconds, I saw the flare bounce once before stopping, which meant floor. Good, I was tired of a hanging around. I swept my feet back and forth, gaining momentum and swinging more and more towards the walls. _Come on, Kronos_ , I pleaded. The scythe must have heard me, or I was just that heavy. Either way, the blade slipped free, and I began another fall. It wasn't long, though, as I had hurled the chained blade at the wall with all my might. It sank into the wall ahead, and I went crashing into stone, in pain, but alive.

I had to stop for a few seconds to catch my breath. Being slammed hard into a stone wall isn't exactly like being hit with a soft pillow. Quite the opposite, actually. I shook the stars from my vision and looked down to see the flare dying out, but now much closer. It looked to be about fifteen feet, but that was still a bit too far. As if sensing my thoughts, Kronos began to drag me up the wall as the chain retracted before transforming back into its true form. The faint glow from the Celestial Bronze was a nice touch, and the blade was easy to remove from the wall. I fell another few feet before sinking Kronos back into the wall, like carving through butter.

I did this a few more times until I was just about two feet from the ground. I yanked Kronos from its stone sheath, and landed easily enough. It was still dark as Tartarus down here, even with the light from Kronos, so I took out another flare and watched as I found myself in a large chamber. The elevator was above me, illuminated by the lights from outside. Ahead of me as a long hallway, no doubt filled with all sorts of monsters. I held Kronos tight, preparing myself for anything that might jump out, and began to walk.

My footsteps echoed off the walls, making me feel small and puny like an ant. I kept walking, letting the scraps of my shoes drown out the boredom. I don't know how far I walked, I just knew I was going far. So far this place felt like just one long hallway, which begged the question: where were all the monsters? I had seen plenty of them in my dreams while I was down here, even a shit ton of pods. So where were they?

Before long, I felt the floor beneath me turn squishy and muddy, which meant I had just hit growth city. I pulled out another flare and struck it, illuminating everything around me. As soon as I did, I immediately wished I hadn't. I found the monsters, alright. I could see them all, the bears, the wolves, the boars, even the birds. All their heads were lowered and the red that usually gave away their evil eyes was gone. At that point, I didn't care if they were sleeping or dead, seeing so many monsters in one place, that usually wasn't a great thing for me.

I walked on, now using the dim light of Kronos to guide me. I made sure to go slower now, because if these things were only sleeping then I did _not_ want to be the one to wake them up. I was not a morning person, and was grumpy when I was woken up early. I could only imagine how it would go with monsters that wanted my insides for a snack. Every so often I would spy one of the pods I saw from my dream. It looked just like it did before, a bubble ready to burst and began to tremble slightly whenever I got close. I took that as a que to keep away from them as much as possible.

Thanks to Kronos, I knew it was exactly 1:32 in the morning by the time I reached the main chamber from my dream. Monsters were all around me, almost all of them being only black, with the occasional bone armor thrown in every now and then. I was not a happy camper to be here, so as best and as quietly as I could, I began to go around, placing each of the blocks of C4 around the chamber. Had I know there would be a large hallway of these things, I would have brought as many explosives as I could, but the ones I brought along now were more than enough to take out this one chamber.

If my guessing was correct, then the giant two lumps of gunk were probably what made the monsters, or at least the bubbles they came in. I say this because as I was setting the timers for thirty minutes and then covering them in the black sludge to hide them I saw one of those piles grow a bubble that was about as big as a bowling ball. It fell off and rolled to a stop towards the center of the chamber, where it sat and began to attach itself to the growth all over the floor. I gagged at both the sight and the sound, but still I worked.

A slimy sound made itself known com across the chamber. I turned my head to see a tiny wolf, breaking out of some cocoon, but still eating something… White. No, not white people, some kind of protein thingy. I held back my gags and continued to work. The various improvised explosives would clear us of much trouble. After all, if this was where they came from, we could drastically decrease the monster population.

I finished my work on this first chamber of my dreams, and walked further into the pit. I looked around. This was part of the metro system, wasn't it? I kicked away some seat, and prying open some doors revealed… A much larger chamber. This one was protected… Which made me wonder if the stronger ones were made here.

The rib-like walls and arm-like floors vibrated slightly as something burst out of a bubble embedded to the wall. A wolf stalked across the room, but it was more lean, stronger, and apparently more protected by armour. The thing was also very heavy… Since, ya know, earth shaker powers = detect large vibrations inside the earth. Damnit, this was going to be another Mt. Helens, wasn't it?

I stared at the dazed wolf and cut it to two pieces from head to crotch. I wasn't sure I could fight all of them if they popped out, so I set to work immediately and placed two charges. I went deeper in and swore. It was like a revolver chamber! There were six small rooms, and one big circular rooms.

Cocoons and bubbles filled up the walls, like that thing from Alien. I used up most of the charges in the main chamber, and placed one in each smaller room. Now for the last room… The back one.

The entrance to the room was thicker in the sludge stuff than the others, which made me believe that they started in this room first. I had to cut away some of the growth, hacking until Kronos carved through it, and stepped through. My pants and shoes were immediately stained with the stuff, but I pressed on. I needed to destroy this place. If I didn't do that then we would all be in trouble.

I had one last explosive with me, so I did the best thing I could: I set it up at the doorway. Once that was done, I turned back to check the room again. If this was where they started, then there had to be something important here, right?

There wasn't much in the room save for the gunk everywhere. I watched as veins of the stuff pulsated and lurched, like they were actually alive. I followed their patterns, tracing how they went over the ceiling and floor, before my eyes rested on the wall across from me. I couldn't make out much, so I had to step closer, which was already setting off every Percy Danger! siren in my head. But I had to investigate. My curiosity would probably kill me someday, but it just had to be done.

The closer I got, the more I noticed something was off with all the 'veins' in the room. For starters, they all seemed to go to one huge chunk of gunk on the wall. The second, said chunk looked vaguely familiar. Lastly, it moved. I'm not afraid to admit I may have made some girlish sounds, but at the same time I kept my ground. It would move and pulsate, like something was trying to get out. I readied Kronos, preparing to cut through it… when something stopped me.

It wasn't anything like a growl, more like a feeling. Like I knew there was something familiar about this particular gunk sac… or whatever was inside it. It was at that moment my mind split into two arguments. One side said cut the damn thing in half and be done with it. This feeling was probably the monsters' way of tricking me into hesitating so I wouldn't end them here and now. But the other side remembered the dream, seeing a hand sticking out of the cocoon, and the strange voice asking for help.

 _Help._ Yeah, like that… wait, what? _Help…. Me._ Okay, yeah, now I know for a fact that there was something talking to me. I could hear it in my head. It wasn't like when Tyson and I once talked when we were underwater, this was more like when Dad once talked to me through my mind. It sounded weak, and raspy. It reminded me of a fish that had been outside water for too long.

A sigh escaped me, and I decided to at least see what was calling out to me. Kronos became a khopesh in my hands, and I carefully carved through the gunk, slowly pushing until I felt an air pocket. Then I sawed the blade downwards, slowly tearing through the 'shell' of this thing.

Every instinct was screaming for me to stop and blow this place to Kingdom Come, but I pushed on, literally, until I made a cut the size of myself. Then, I grabbed the newly made flap, and pulled, taking care to keep myself behind the black curtain of gunk. It felt like mucus on paper that had the elasticity of a wet piece of cardboard, and I will admit my stomach did somersaults as I pulled. Wet tearing echoed in the small room, but I pulled with all my strength. Eventually, I had managed to tear open the thing enough to have a good look inside. Not wanting to be jumped by some new monster, I slowly peeked around the corner.

Now, before I go any further, I'm going to say I have seen many weird things. I've seen a man with three bodies and one head. I've seen the incarnation of Hell itself. I've even seen the Earth itself get pissed. But this… this was something I was _not_ expecting.

I saw a kid, probably no more than fourteen years old. He was as pale as a ghost, lanky and thin like he had been starved, and whatever remained of his clothes were in tatters. The veins that had crawled all over the ceiling were leading right to him. From where I was, I couldn't tell if them were _on_ him or _in_ him. I didn't care. I saw a person in front of me, and I was not about to let them die, not here in this Hell. Kronos was a bronze blur, cutting through the smaller veins that were all over him until he began to slouch forward. I was quick in grabbing him, using everything I had to pull him out. It was then I figured out the veins were _in_ him, which was not okay.

I don't know why I was feeling so emotional at that point. Anger flared through me every time I cut one of the black veins, and sadness gripped my heart like ice whenever I heard the kid groan. Maybe I had been in this world for so long I forgot what it was like to actually feel? I don't know, nor did I care at that moment. I just needed to get him out.

The las vein was cut, and the kid was safely out of that pod. I didn't know what he went through down here, but I was going to get him out. Gently I set him down, letting him rest as I pulled out another flare. Just as I was about to strike it, I felt a hand weakly grab my arm. I looked over to the kid, able to see his face now. It reminded me so much of Leo, yet I could tell it wasn't him. He wasn't as elfish in appearance, and his hair, though messy, looked more like a broccoli top or a small afro. But it was his eyes that kept me there. They were green. Sea green. Like mine. Like _Dad's_. I thought, _There is no way this kid is a son of Dad, I'm just seeing things._ Then the kid spoke to me.

"Thank you… brother."

(What about the Pitfall-esque escape?!)

I froze, right there. The world around me melted away, leaving only myself, and the boy next to me. There were no monsters, there was no nest, or hive, or whatever the hell these things spawned from. It was just me and him. I looked at him now, really looked at him.

He looked so frail right now, his clothes in ruins, scars from having been stuck here for so long, even his muscles looked unhealthy. He wasn't skin and bones, but he wasn't exactly ready to go, either. His eyes looked so dull, like a plate that had been sitting for weeks and gathering dust. I didn't know what to say, but I found my hand shaking as I clasped his. I wasn't going to leave him down here before, and I certainly wasn't going to leave him, now.

I set the bag down and began to slow process of moving this kid… my brother... onto my back. Once he was secured, I grabbed the bag, and set the timer for the explosive. It had taken me about ten minutes to walk (thank you Kronos, ironically) here and about five to get down the hole. Before I would have guessed it would have taken me twenty minutes to climb back up on my own, but with this new kid, I decided to be generous and make it forty-five minutes.

Each bomb I set, I made sure to leave hidden. The monsters weren't much of a sight before, but now that I had someone else with me I wasn't willing to take any chances. I moved slowly, careful not to accidentally wake up anything nasty. By the time I had finally made it back to the actual tunnel, I began a slow jog, going as fast but as quietly as I could. I know I set the timers for just under an hour, but I still didn't want to be anywhere near this place with those bombs ready to go off. My luck with things like this usually entailed big explosion coming after me with me just barely escaping (read: Mt. Helens. Read: Typhon).

Thanks to Kronos' passive ability to always give me the time, I knew that by the time I had reached the elevator shaft room, it had been only fifteen minutes. I would have gone faster, but those monster would have probably heard me running and tripping over myself.

Kronos bent to my will and became the chained scythe yet again. I didn't know how far it could reach, so as a test, I fired it almost straight up. Up and up it went, soaring higher and higher until it stopped just a few yards shy of the elevator opening. At least I had a good reach. The chain came back, locking in place in the scythe again. I took aim lower, easily within its range, and fired.

The scythe blade sailed true, sticking into the wall and actually pulling _me_ along with it. I wasn't expecting that at first, so I nearly lost my grip on the kid. Thankfully, this kid had insight and hugged himself to me as hard as he could. It didn't feel like much strength was used, which made my throat tighten up. I shook those feelings from myself. I couldn't be distracted right now, no matter how much my feelings wanted to burst forth.

I braced my legs to catch on the wall, giving me a sort of crouching position. One hand held the scythe, the other supporting my… brother. I just wasn't used to saying that, anymore. Not… not since Tyson.

Once again I shook the sadness from my head. Sad later, run now, my body told me. So I listened. Gathering up as much strength as I could muster, I tensed my legs against the wall, and shot off, bringing a now retracted Kronos with me. Midair I twisted and shot the scythe out, catching the inside of the elevator. Again I sailed towards the scythe head, but this time I was ready for it. My legs caught the lip of the elevator shaft, and I repeated the process until I was on level ground.

I remained quiet on the trip back. With the kid on my back, there wasn't much else i could do. I snuck away from a few praying cultists, and the occasional monster that scurried about. I decided to take the long way back, the same way I had taken when I was being chased by the hog squad.

As I walked, the earth rumbled and a small earthquake rolled beneath my feet.

"Hey." I muttered to the group.

They put down their individual works as I dropped the kid on a chair.

"Found this guy on my way back."

They were all silent for a moment, but most except the "leaders" stayed.

"He looks a lot like you." Bran noted.

"I haven't looked in a mirror for weeks."

Bran dug around some duffle bag, and eventually pulled out a rusty device outlined with pink.

"For the princess." He said.

I scowled and looked in. Well, I did sort of look like him. I cast another layer of mist over the kid, you know, just in case someone sees the black veins or the scars they left.

Still though, he looked like he went through Hell itself at least five times over. I couldn't help feel horrible at this. I had a brother… besides Tyson? Since when did Dad have another kid? Was he even my brother?

As I looked him over, I could see his breathing was shallow, and his eyes were droopy. I sighed, and looked to Bran. "Mind helping me get him to a bed?" Bran nodded and together we carried the kid into a nearby bed. He wasn't even slightly heavy, which had me worried. Who knows for how long that kid was down there?

"I'm going to get some water." Bran said, walking off. I didn't even nod, I just kept staring at the kid. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I did to distract myself, my thoughts just kept going back to Tyson. Before the fall of Olympus, before we fought Gaea, we had a small skirmish with Octavian's last stand. Well, I say small skirmish but two armies of fully armed demigods with indestructible heavenly metal armour duking it out for ten minutes isn't exactly small or a skirmish by comparison. But during those ten minutes, we lost so many people.

Dad had lent us the Cyclopes along with the other gods sending whatever aid they could. But then Octavian came and had to screw everything up! Tyson… he led the Cyclopes against a ballista squad and ended up taking a bolt for one of his brethren. Even going down, he still took out one ballista.

It was moments like that when I wondered why we considered using weapons like swords and ancient ineffective catapults when there were missiles and machine guns.

Bran came back with three containers of water, setting them down by the kid, and leaving to go back to whatever. I opened the first one, carefully lifted the kid's head up a little, and trickled water down his throat. My aquatic senses told me his stomach was extremely small compared to a normal human's so after three seconds of water, I stopped. That seemed to help a little seeing as how he went from soft ragged breathing to just soft, shallow breathing.

I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, so I made myself comfortable, and sat there. This kid in front of me kept his eyes closed, but just when I thought he was asleep, he began to talk to me. "Per...cy?" My head shot up, and I was by his side in an instant.

"What?" I asked, unsure if I had heard him right. He could've probably said he was thirsty. "Thank… you." And just like that he was out.

Confusion set in and I was left wondering just what in the hell happened. Something obviously made the monsters either not want to attack him or just avoid him. What it was, though, was still a mystery. Him recognizing me? That was no surprise. Hell, if you were involved with the gods and you didn't know me, you lived under the very definition of a mountain.

I wasn't that recognizable in public. There were heavy mist spells on the numerous times I appeared on the news, and… It was hard to recall for the mortals. After 2 months of the lightning bolt quest, no mortal recognized me. The same went for just about any quest that featured Percy Jackson as "delinquent extraordinaire."

 **Omake:**

Everyone was running around frantically as the world began to change before their eyes.

"What's happening?"

Percy took out a cookie, and ate the tasty treat. His eyes widened at the sight of it disappearing forever into an empty void, AKA his mouth.

"Oh god! Change it back! Change it back!"

"Why are my breasts so big?"

"I can't feel my nose anymore!"

"I just scratched myself why am I gushing so much blood?!"

Percy cried like a girl as he rubbed his fat fingers, now devoid of fingernails. Piper had lost it, and was laughing madly at the sight of her missing nose, which was now merely a line and some shadow.

Leo's eyes widened to the size of flying saucers as he eyed the skirts and stockings and hair and assets. He grinned. Best. Day. Ever! If only his ears were less sharp… was he an actual elf now? _Oh shit._

"Percy, let go of the stop sign."

"Not a chance! I'm going to use this bad boy as a weapon!"

"But Percy, what about the monsters all having bone armor? A stop sign won't cut it. You need something with _OOMPH_! Here, take this assault rifle."

"Why the hell is this thing so big? And is that a flamethrower grenade launcher?"

Everyone was now capable of fighting at physics breaking force, some guy managed to block the force of a 125-ton strike of a serpent, and they all did impractical fighting maneuvers.

 **A:N/**

 **Goodsir: *Rips off headset* Being a DJ is dank!**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Bah, DJs and I tend not to get along. Usually it devolves into a shouting match, and on the occasion the Truxican Standoff between myself, the DJ, and sometimes a person named Esteban.**

 **Goodsir: Well, it usually ends with some guy called Raj from "microsoft tech support" for me.**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: I know that bastard! He called me one time and boy did I give him a stern talking to. I'm pretty sure every pantheon would wash my mouth out with lava because of the things I called him. Microsoft Tech support my arse! We'll see all you fantastic readers in the next chapter! Until next time: DEUCE!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Oh. my. Yogurts! I just figured it out! The secret to the universe: How to make the best flamberge in existence! Do pardon me while I get some grapefruits! *Chainsaw sounds fading off into the distance, followed by the braying of an ass.***

 **Lance: And he's gone. Just like that. So….. I've no idea what to do now. He didn't give me a script. I guess I'll just say neither of these authors claim to own the two series they're writing about, because gods help us all if** _ **that**_ **one ever gets the rights to either of them. (Proceeds to point at Mr.P3pp3r in the distance. Vague sounds of incoherent shouting can be heard)**

 **Goodsir: And who the hell are you? *Dies with a cloth held to face.***

 **Reviews:**

 **Percyofhellhounds: You are beautiful. Period. You are the first legitimate reviewer who has provided us with genuine criticism. Thank you for your contributions. I will live the rest of my days following your words. That aside, we will try to make things more clear as time goes on. I always thought my over-descriptive writing was boring…**

We had to deal with the monsters more. Night had fallen and I was just finishing my shift for guard duty. For the past three days we'd been moving west, following rumors of settlements trying to start in the west. Along the way we had a few skirmishes with bandits, and the occasional brush with god church.

The monsters? Every night we had at least one run in with them, be it a pack of their black werewolves (seriously, we need a name), some of their black boars, or even a flock of black (it's not even funny any more, just racist) ravens. As we moved further and further away, though, I started to see a pattern. They were older, too. More experienced than the younger monsters we'd always run into back in a city. Still, with Kronos they were easy enough to deal with. I just had to be more careful when dealing with them.

As I went back to my makeshift room, formerly a phone booth, I grabbed two cans of food, and two bottles of water. You see, I had a guest in my room… my brother, actually. Yeah, I didn't know about him, either. But he was my brother. At least, that's what he called me when we first met. During the trips I would carry him on my back, and he'd spend his time sleeping and recovering, so I wasn't able to get much out of him aside that his name was Lance. We'd gotten him into new clothes, and when I had free time I would try and help him recover his strength. Bran, Gwen, and John would do the same whenever I couldn't on my own. However, the water didn't seem to heal him much… perhaps he was just a relative?

Slowly I opened the door, sneaking a look to see if he was asleep. Oddly enough, he wasn't. He was just staring at the ceiling with a dead look in his eyes, lying still in his cot. "Lance," I asked. Some life returned to his eyes and he snapped to the door. A weak smile grew on his face. Seeing as how I wouldn't be disturbing him, I entered. I handed him a water bottle, and sat down next to him. Slowly we'd been feeding him food, going one spoonful at a time. The first few tries he'd vomit out the food, drink some water, and go to sleep. It was only at noon today that he'd managed to keep one spoonful of food down.

"Hey, man. You doing alright?" I asked him as he began to sip the water. "I am." he croaked out. His voice sounded like sandpaper dragged across tree bark, but then again he'd been in a monster's hive for a good while, if I had to guess. "You mind if I ask you a couple of questions?" I asked, opening one of the cans, and spooned some food in his mouth. He swallowed it all, nodding as he did, and listened.

I sighed, not knowing where to start. I wanted to ask him how he'd survived in a monster nest like that, or how he got there in the first place. I wanted to know how much experience he had as a demigod, how he knew of me, and… how we were brothers.

"Lance… are we really brothers?" I began, my voice edge and cautious as I asked him. I wanted to know if we were really related, if he simply called people 'brother' or 'sister,' or if it had been a slip of the tongue. He nodded.

"When I was born, Father was worried that Zeus would have targeted us the same way he did with Hades' children." Lance began, turning to me and staring at me with a level gaze. "So when I was born, he gave me to Zeus as a sort of peace offering, much like what Zeus did with Jason." I winced slightly as hearing Jason's name. "Zeus agreed to spare you and Mother, and left me in the care of his Myrmidons." Lance swallowed again, looking a tiny bit better than he did three days ago.

"So I grew up on Mount Olympus, trained by the Myrmidons in basic sword skill when I was seven. During those seven years, Father made three visits to inform me of both you and Mother. The first was about how you'd fought a Fury and lived. The second was about how you fought off a hellhound on your own. The third… was when Zeus blamed you for stealing his lightning bolt. So every chance I could, I would try to see what you were doing during your quest."

He took another small drink of water before continuing. "Brother, when I saw you I was filled with wonder, pride, and joy. You'd slain Procrustus, you'd infiltrated the Underworld, _and_ fought Ares one-on-one, and defeated him. From that point on, I had wanted to be just like you." I could tell he was trying his best to grin, but could only manage the same smile from before. However, I felt something grip my heart worse than ice. It hurt, and the more I listened the more the pain grew. I had a brother, and I never knew about him. Why hadn't Mom told me? Lance seemed to notice this, and said, "Brother, when I was taken, Father had used Mist to alter both your memories. He didn't want you trying to look for me in fear Zeus would strike us all down."

I blinked, letting the message go to my head. "When you returned the bolt to Zeus, Father had wanted to tell you about me, but Zeus had already threatened both you and Mother before you arrived. After you left, Zeus had become afraid of you."

"Afraid of me?" I asked. I was… Very confused at this point. Didn't really know how to respond to any of these things. Was this… was this real?

Lance nodded. "It was that prophecy. He feared that you would tear down Olympus. So he had the Myrmidons cease training me in sword-skill, and focus more on magic and magical manipulation." By now, Lance had begun to sweat. I wanted to hear the rest of the story, but I didn't want Lance to strain himself. 

"Lance, get some rest. We can finish this later." I said, moving to get up. But Lance held onto me, keeping me in place… No, not physically. The look in his eyes, pleading me to stay, kept me from going. "I'll be fine brother." Lance tried to assure me, but he was looking a little feverish. I managed to get him to sip some more water before continuing. That seemed to help a bit.

"So for five more years, I had trained as a magic user. Because I had father's blood in me, water magic was better suited for me, but I could get by with other magical abilities. It got to the point that the Myrmidons had to ask a minor godling that followed Hecate to train me. I never had free time to practice what I learned, because in those five years, I had also been called upon Hera to aid with the newborn godlings until they grew into adulthood a few weeks later."

I drank everything he said in. While I had been escapading around on quests and having a girlfriend, Lance, my own brother, had been stuck under Zeus' eye and been kept away. "Though, that didn't stop me from watching and learning about everything you did." Lance stated, his hand going back to his side. "Whenever I was with the godlings, I would use what little power in scrying I had to watch you on your quests. What I couldn't see I learned from the other gods talking." Even though his voice was hoarse, and he was sweating even more, he sounded so proud of me. The pain on my heart grew more, tightening my chest and bringing another tear to my eye. However, as much as I wanted to believe his story, there wasn't much proof.

I had never hated Zeus so much until then. What right did he have to keep my brother locked away? King of the gods, pheh. More like King of the Assholes. Zeus was no better than the monsters I had fought. At least the monsters were easy enough to learn. Zeus had power and hung it over everyone's head whenever he had the chance. I couldn't stand him when I first met him, and I couldn't stand the _thought_ of him now. If Zeus were alive, I didn't care if it would have been suicide I would have given him something to fear.

"It was during your time with the Romans that I had been allowed to go on my first quest. It was Hera that instructed me to help search for you. I had wanted to find you, make you proud of me, and earn the right to be your brother, that I began searching right away. I made sure to ask every god I could about your last known location before going off to find you."

My heart hit the top of my throat so hard I nearly broke down in tears right there. Lance had no reason to search for me, we had never been together at all. And yet he was willing to look for me even when I had no idea who he would have been. And earning the right call himself my brother… I was glad Zeus was dead now, otherwise I'd take Kronos and finish what my grandfather failed to do. At least, in taking down Zeus. I would have had someone else take over as king, most likely Dad, or Athena. More probably Athena, since Dad never even _once_ mentioned anything, _anything_ about Lance. I could understand why he did something like that, but still, dropping a hint or two would have been appreciated.

"Lance, seriously you need to rest." I said, trying to coerce him into resting. He didn't need to stress himself this much. I had just found out I had a brother. Family. Another demigod. Someone I could actually care for in this dead world. I wasn't going to give him up so easily. Lance shook his head, still smiling, but was practically coated in sweat now. "Do not worry about me, brother. I can handle it." I wanted to argue, to say that he didn't need to push himself so hard for me. But I couldn't speak. The words caught in my throat with the rest of my heart, and I was sure that if I tried to speak I would either roar a cacophony of curses at Zeus' memory or cry and beg forgiveness from Lance. I'm sure he would want neither right now.

Lance sighed as he noticed my anguish. "Brother, please… I need to do this." He startled me when he said that, like he thought he was going to die soon.

"After you had been located, I was called back to Olympus. It was there I was given my second mission: to investigate a rumor about the Doors of Death. I was sent with a squad of Myrmidons, and we'd find the doors, right where you came out from Tartartus. But it was a trap." A tear welled up in his eye as he continued.

"The Myrmidons were slaughtered, and I was taken captive and brought to Nyx. Brother, I witnessed horrors worse than anything in Tartarus, possibly even worse than Tartarus himself. But she kept me there, torturing me for years, going out of her way to break me to learn what I knew. Time had no meaning there. A day here could have been a century there and you would not have noticed. She tried everything she knew, even going as far as to drag before the edge of Tartarus and promised to drop me if I didn't speak. She almost broke me… had I not learned if you defying her. I heard about what you did, how you tricked her and all her children, and I knew I had to be strong, like you. She brought her anger out on me, but I thought of what you did, and that strengthened me. I was in pain, but I knew you would succeed." The tear fell down, a sense of pride emanating from him. "After Gaea fell, Nyx had one final strategy, one final trick to try and win. She used her own essence to create a new species of monster, one specifically designed to kill humans. And she wanted to keep me alive to witness your downfall. But I knew you wouldn't, and you even rescued me in the process." He turned to look me on the eye as he said, "Thank you." After that, he fell asleep almost instantly, the talk having drained him off his strength.

I took a breath outside the room. Was that all real? Was there an ounce of truth within his words? I couldn't find out for sure, but… he'd been pretty safe the entire time, while we fought the enemies…

I shook my head. Whether or not he was my brother: a demigod, one of the last ones, was worth keeping alive. My species, as a fucking whole, was basically extinct. Nothing left other than me, maybe a couple stragglers, and a guy who called me brother. It didn't matter if he was really my brother, it didn't matter if he was just some delusional kid obsessed with the stories of Percy Jackson, but protecting your own species was a damn right cause.

"Issues?" John breathed.

I nodded.

"Jeez. Who knew you'd find family in a nest, eh?" I knew John's voice was filled with regret. We'd all dreamt of saving our family and loved ones from the monsters and the explosions.

"Hey, let's call a meeting. I wanna discuss some things is all."

John nodded and whistled the other leaders over. There was a large but rusty white tent that was their unofficial headquarters, with a table and map and everything. It would be cool though, if we had those broom thingies they use in world war 2 to push around toy soldiers. Yep, next time we had materials, I was going to build one!

Gwen brushed her hair back as she was seated in the light wooden chair. Bran brushed his own hair back, turning to face us.

"How's the kid doing?"

"Unresolved family issues. Other than that, fine."

"Can he fight like you?" Bran asked.

Everyone paused. I… didn't exactly know. Kept around by Zeus, eh? Probably not the best place to train. In the case of the group... if "Lance" had decent camp level training, it'd be a huge tip in the balance of power. Hell, even with me, I dominated the fighting ability of every single one of us. Another (younger) me would completely tip the scales in my favour, and from our little chat earlier, it was pretty clear whose side he was on.

"Never asked." I replied.

"Who is he?" Gwen interrogated.

"Extended family. Wasn't aware until recently." I replied.

Gwen frowned, clearly unsatisfied. In this room, there was no need for jokes. Every single word was important, and extra talk was a complete waste of time. It was clear she couldn't deal with this problem now, not when the survival of our group was at stake.

There was a long silence, where nobody really looked at each other. The tension was high, with all of us either frustrated or plain tired.

John broke the silence. "We have to start planning for the settlement." We nodded in unison. While most had survived thus far, most of the people were still fairly untrained in the arts of survival. Opening cans and finding shelter really wasn't a chore. Bran was an accountant, therefore handling most of the supplies and rations. Gwen was… she had no specialties, but you really didn't need that to lead a group. She naturally took care of the people, helping them cope with the stress, therefore a first choice of the people.

John was sort of the leader and most favoured, being a fairly tactical thinker in all aspects, taking many different approaches and analyzing enemies. He usually specialized in close quarters combat, taught by yours truly to protect everyone when guns couldn't do so.

Me? I was the general! I trained everyone in the ways of combat, and led the assault. In recent cases, we had a much higher success rate, with two or three able to take down a single wolf. A full squad of five could handle one of those bears! They weren't fighting material, and we didn't have the proper nutrition for fighters, but they would do for now.

Gwen… ah, she was also some scientist too! Probably knew a lot of botany and biology, by the looks of it. Gwen had the least evident specialty, but science was something we definitely needed when we finally could settle down. Don't want people worshipping fire again, right?

I stood up and left, but not before reassuring them I would teach some survival skills.

"Take up arms, my brothers, for this heathen shall last no more!"

I sighed as I bisected another cultist, seriously, was there no end to these guys? What gave them the idea to worship monsters?

I returned to the campsite we set up, and helped up some guy to stand. We started work on removing and packing up the various tents and makeshift houses, assigning different loads to everyone.

John came over and tossed a can of peaches at me. I caught the food midair, but John tossed me another can, supposedly for Lance. I grabbed some cloth, just in case… you know, vomiting. I held the can to his lips, and Lance cracked his weak eyes open, slurping in some of the contents. Luckily, only a few dribbles of liquid ran down his cheeks, and he hurriedly reached up to wipe it. I stopped him before wiping his face anyways, you couldn't really give a bath to someone who was lying on a bed constantly.

"Can you walk? We're leaving."

Lance nodded and stood up.

"We gotta pack first, we can talk later." Lance agreed again.

I folded some sheets of metal and wood, chucking them away to some random place. One debate we held was to bring scraps for building or not, and it resulted in bringing most of the tools and screws and stuff, but we were going to bring some of the junk over. One plan the carpenters came up with was the wall, something they tested could stand up reasonably well to monster blunt force attacks.

As our little "caravan" was up and ready to go, with bagels to boot, I waved some mist over me and Lance, hopefully concealing any trace of conversation. Lance noticed the gesture, and relaxed his tongue.

"Lance… as reasonable as your explanation sounds… I have no proof."

Lance was silent, but obviously still confident, probably some good evidence.

"Brother, you remember the first time mother baked blue cookies? Around when you were five years old?"

I was confused. "Yeah, she baked like, thirty of them."

"How many did you eat?"

I was silent for a second… 5? 6? 7?

"You ate seven. Mother made those to teach counting, right? I remember that clear as day, and I ate three cookies, remember? There were twenty left over. I knew Zeus would never be that careful about details."

My eyes widened as I remembered that there were only two rows of cookies left, and mom obviously didn't eat any. And come on, Gabe would never eat anything blue related.

That was _obviously_ enough detail to ensure that he was my brother.

I nodded at Lance. Despite me probably never going to recover the lost memories of my childhood, we were all brothers in arms! Alright, that sounds a bit too cheesy, but screw it.

"How'd you get Kronos' scythe?" Lance asked.

"Found it in a pile of bodies."

Lance curled his lips in distaste at the imagery, but shut up regardless. Well, that was it. Except one last test… I unsheathed the broken riptide, which I had picked up on my recent trip to the nest. Riptide… riptide. Dad always tried to ensure that the blade would never fall into the hands of the enemy, and installed a fucking return spell that would ensure it would always come back to my pocket in pen form. Dad also installed a DNA scanner… don't ask.

However, that spell broke when the sword did. So it wasn't much use to me, anymore. I held the now useless blade to Lance. He looked over out of curiosity. When he saw the blade, his eyes widened. I couldn't tell of it was fear, shock, or a mixture of both. "Is that…?" His voice trailed off, his gaze never leaving the blade. "Riptide," I confirmed, tossing the sword so that the handle was now facing Lance. "Dad gave this to me so that I could protect myself."

Lance caught the blade, his eyes running over every minute detail. He cringed a little when he got to the broken edge. I wondered if he felt sorry for me, but if he did then I didn't need his pity. 

"Just don't touch the scythe, alright?" I said.

The guy nodded quickly, his eyes already going back to what remained of Riptide. He traced with blade's edge softly, as if he were afraid he'd break what remained of it. "Never see a sword before?" I jokingly asked him.

"I have, but to see Father's gift shattered… I never thought I'd see such a thing." Quickly he drew back his hand, shaking it a little. It was then I realized that in his enamored state he had nicked himself. A small drop of blood grew on his finger, and he began to suck on the wound.

Lance held the sword back out to me, but I waved my hand. "You keep it. Figured it would be best for you right now until we get you trained for a real weapon." Lance was stunned for a moment, before taking the ruined blade and pocketing it in his bag, throwing a nod of appreciation my way. I returned the nod and dropped the Mist. I don't know what the others saw while the Mist influenced their vision, but I did know that whatever it was, it wasn't what we discussed.

Later on that night, we had set up camp around five in the evening. Raiders weren't as common in the forests as they were in the city ruins, and only a handful of monsters, by comparison, stalked the woods as well. So the de facto leaders - myself, Gwen, Bran, John, and Jessie - had elected to stop to let the engineers in our large group try out a couple of ideas. Three teams of five were then sent out into the woods to establish a perimeter and to patrol for any nearby monsters. Each person had been trained well and were ready, while the others that had wanted to fight but lacked the experience (including my brother, though a demigod he may be), gathered around for our next training session.

The few experienced people that we had remaining at camp helped out, mostly to relieve me of the stress of dealing with so many whiners. Not everyone was capable of being a warrior, but we still needed everyone pulling their share, and unless they could actually understand and use mental math the engineers used, they were stuck with me.

For the first half-hour, I tutored four people - two older men, a mother that lost her husband to the monsters when this all first started, and a teenager - on the advanced techniques before having them join the rest of the trainees for sparring. It was the only way I knew they would practiced what they learned, because we had a system in place: trainees would use what they learned and tried to last as long as they could against an instructor. It wasn't perfect, but it hammered the idea that they needed to keep these skills as sharp as a sword if they wanted to survive. Even then, I never actually sparred with them. No mortal could ever hope to achieve the level of battle-experience a demigod was at. Even demigods that had no idea what was going on had better chances at surviving against monsters than a regular mortal, because that is what we were born to do.

I pulled myself from my thoughts, looking over my shoulder to see Lance watching everything. His eyes were like a hawk's as he gazed intently at each trainee, trying to decipher the moves they were using. He looked just like Annabeth when she had been presented with a puzzle. Eyes glaring at every detail, noting as much as they could while rapidly scanning over everything as a whole. It was a look I myself have been known to show more than once, but never with as much… enthusiasm as her. Now I guess I could say Lance was the same way.

I made my way over to him, taking a slow pace to relax my heartbeat and let my body regain what little energy it lost. That was another thing about us demigods, we were prone to faster rejuvenation. The godly blood that flowed through us, the very same blood that let us consume the food and drink of the gods - ambrosia and nectar, respectively - also made us more durable. Demigods caught their breath faster, dealt with pain faster, even learned to cope with disabilities faster.

The seat next to him was empty. I would have asked if he minded, but the way he was staring so intently at the sparring lessons gave me the idea that he wouldn't have minded. So I sat next to him, watching with him, occasionally glancing at him. Every once in awhile, whenever a trainee was knocked down, Lance would flinch a little, but he never once moved more than that.

Finally, after letting him gawk for a few minutes, I felt like it was time to break the ice. "You learning anything," I questioned. Absently he nodded, not even bothering to speak. "You know, I hear that learning physical moves goes much better when you actually practice them," I informed, heavily hinting that he join them.

"I would, but I'm not used to training with so many people," he finally admitted, taking his eyes off the trainees and placing them on me. "All my training has either been one-on-one or in a small, secluded group. I'm… I'm not sure how I would handle being around so many people. My social skills aren't exactly well-built."

Ah, so he was nervous, and had a little stage fright. A moment later would have found me telling him that it'd be better for him if he just went in and joined, when I happened to glance over to find Lance's eyes had glazed over, staring at the dirt. He shivered slightly, arms tucked in and holding each other, and he rocked back and forth lightly. Immediately I was right next to him, hand on his forehead. He didn't have a fever, and his skin hadn't lost color.

At that point I didn't know what to do, so I did what came naturally. My hands were on his shoulders, and I was rocking him back and forth. "Lance… Lance! What's happening?" He wouldn't stop shivering, so I did what else came naturally. My hand was a blur as it raced across his face, a light slap to get his attention. It worked, thankfully. His eyes snapped back to the reality around him, and he stopped shaking. For a second they searched around, as if they were trying to find something. Then, they settled on me.

It was like looking in a mirror when I saw his eyes. Sometimes Annabeth used to tell me that the eyes were the windows to the soul, and that whenever she looked into mine she saw something brave and warm and kind in there. But whenever I looked into them, especially within the past few days, I saw nothing but darkness behind them, as if every drop of innocence had been sucked from my soul. It was the kind of look I had seen Luke with when he told me of his plan to overthrow the gods. All the times he wanted me to join him, I had thought it was because the prophecy was about me, but now I guess it was because we had the same exact look. The look of a killer. Now was I bothered by this fact? No, I was not. At first I was, but the more I fought monsters, the more I realized and accepted that to fight a monster you had to become a sort of monster yourself, just to the point that you could handle them. After my third year at camp, I focused more on fighting, because I knew that monsters weren't going to give me a second chance.

Seeing Lance with that same expression, it left me wondering just how alike we were. From what I could gather, he was as green as grass when it came to combat, but guts and steel seemed to be with him just fine. I'm willing to bet they didn't sugarcoat his time on Olympus, not with Zeus around anyway.

I stood up and gathered a black suitcase from the pile of stuff we collected. I was pleased to find a black foam pad inside, and placed the various shards of Riptide back in. Lance glanced at how the sharp metal pressed into the soft padding, and looked away. I put the case in my pile of luggage, and tugged on the crystal bracelet (who knew Kronos was this girlish?), letting it become Kronos. I swung the thing a couple of times, and looked at Lance.

"I'll walk you through some basic training, then specialized. Oh, and what type are you?" I asked.

"Type B."

 _Interesting…_ Type B demigods were a different and rarer type of demigod. Their body was 50% godly energy, however it greatly strained their bodies. They also couldn't control their domains as well… However, that was made up by the ability to use godly energy as different magic styles. At least, we called it magic. Usually made the idea easier. In other words, they were either the "support" or "glass cannon" role in our armies.

Most type Bs came from the Apollo cabin. They could use it for better healing (that guy cured like 50 gunshot wounds), but were much worse fighters. The type Cs, like me, however, had their domain abilities, better fighting skill, and used prayers to the gods for their more magical abilities.

Ha, betcha Rick didn't tell you that, right? Yeah, it was some classified shit.

There hadn't been any record of a type B Poseidon demigod… Zeus, however, had a couple, and there was that kid in the orientation film who shot a beam of concentrated energy to disintegrate a pack of hounds… In short, they were the "mages" of the demigods, lessening the support work of the fighters. Since a single type B Apollo demigod could heal hundreds of wounded by themselves, we could put more of the type C Apollo kids in a battle.

The Hermes and Hades type Bs could teleport...

The Ares type Bs could empower their allies…

The Athena type Bs had minor telepathy…

The Aphrodite type Ds could appear in half divine form...

The Zeus, Dionysus, and Demeter type Bs could disintegrate their foes…

Type As and Ds, you ask? Fuck those guys, I don't even want to talk about them. Type As and Ds were all huge dicks, regardless of their gender. Seriously, fuck those guys. I locked up the black case, and looked at the kid.

"Alrighty then… well, let's do some warm-ups first, then we'll try to get you in shape."

Lance looked confused as I pushed myself up. "Warm-ups? What- what do you mean warm-ups?"

I smiled, having to turn myself away lest I give him a scare. "You're going to train." I put it simply, because I wanted him to be in fighting shape. Demigods lead by example, so Lance training and improving himself would be a huge benefit for the other trainees. Type B demigods were horrible in hand-to-hand combat, so if Lance could improve then _everyone_ could improve.

The look he gave me was absolutely priceless. A mixture of fear, regret, and a small amount of anxiety plastered onto his face was just too memorable. _Come on, Percy. Keep it together. Don't scare him away just yet_ , I mentally chided myself.

 **~Lance~**

 _Come on, Lance. He's just one person… Okay, yeah that's not going to work_ , I mentally cursed, barely reacting quickly enough to deflect another blow from my brother. His strikes were like Hephaestus' hammer working metal, and each time I blocked directly my arms rattled. My brother, having thought the idea to be quite hilarious, had given me the benefit of practicing after everyone else had left. _Better to dodge next time._

My lungs burned, my vision was blurred by sweat, and I was at the point of falling over from sheer exhaustion. My brother was a madman! No one, demigod or mortal, had that kind of stamina! Whereas I was drenched from head to toe, Perseus had his practice sword slung over his shoulder, looking as if he were enjoying a nice day at a park instead of teaching me how to fight.

The only reason I had managed to last this long was because my godly half kept me aware of my surroundings, even when on the brink of fainting. I couldn't even speak I was so weak. The most I could get out was the occasional grunt as Percy 'took it easy' on me. Personally, it felt as if it were a punishment.

"You doing alright?" he asked, tilting his head to the side as he looked me over. I nodded, gripping the sword as best I could. There was no way I was going to come _even close_ to my brother, but if there was one trait every demigod shared, it was stubbornness. I had too much pride in myself and my brother to give up. That, and I'm sure that if I tried Perseus would instill as much 'discipline' in me as he could. I let the godly energy, or what little that remained, wash over me. It didn't heal any wounds, but the exhaustion was no longer as bad.

Despite everything, I nodded. The smile he gave was an apologetic one, which meant I was in for a shit show, but at least he gave warning. Brother was a blur as he rushed towards me, every movement prepared and tensed for a fight. Oh yeah, I wasn't anywhere near close. The best I could do was try and deflect one last blow. I raised my sword as best I could, but I wasn't fast enough for a deflect, and ended up just minimizing the blow against my body. Percy's practice sword and mine collided, mine being pushed against my chest and stomach, and knocking the wind from my feet. The force behind the blow had lifted me off my feet. The world spun before I found myself colliding with the ground. Hard.

I couldn't see much beyond the sweat, pain, and tears, but I did see a person enter my vision. Most of me thought it was Percy, but there was that one part of me that though Thanatos had finally come to claim me. "You did good," I heard my brother's voice say. It sounded distant and echoed, like he was shouting through a cave.

I felt the ground leave my presence and my brother's form taking up more of my vision. It had taken me a moment to realize he had begun to carry me on his back. I wanted to thank him, but only weak whines of pain could make it.

Percy chuckled (at least, I assumed he was chuckling) as he brought me back to our room. Never before was a bed so inviting to me. Unfortunately, My body refused to move at all. My brother seeme to understand this, and promptly dumped me on my bed. A slur of curses flew through my mind, each trying to find a way out, but everything ached. Not even my time with the Myrmidons was this taxing.

Sleep was fast encroaching me, taking me into a blissful, dreamless, oblivion that would allow me respite. However, before I was taken fully, I heard Perseus speak to me, giving me one final instance of fear. "That was a good start. Next time we'll have to take it up a notch." Did he know no bounds?

 **~Percy~**

I watched as Lance practically fainted on his bed. Kid was good for going at it his first time. He still had a long way to go before I would ever consider sending him against one of the newborn monsters. Still, at least when he was ready it would be nice to have some backup I would be able to completely rely on, for a change. I knew pushing people to their hardest wasn't that effective as it sounded. Making your trainees fall asleep in exhaustion meant their bodies were being worked too hard, and their muscles were slowly destroying themselves and becoming stronger, BUT that there muscles were not healing in enough time to actually make a difference on their bodies. If only I had some ambrosia…

The others were great when they were in a group, but where I could take on multiple monsters at once, it took three (two if the situation was good) of our strongest people after myself to take on one wolf. I know, demigods born to fight monsters blah blah blah… but still, having another demigod that would at least be competent enough to take on, say, three of the wolves would be just fantastic.

As I lay on my bed, listening to Lance snore through his exhaustion, my mind began to wonder about what would happen next, if we did manage to get a settlement up and running. I did the workshop on making a fire AGAIN, just to take some of the boredom off my mind. After that, Jessie showed me more sewing, since I'd forgotten most of the stuff I learned in camp.

Camp… I know I wasn't there most of the year, but I was there far longer than most people believed. In school, I tried to be human. However, with the weight of the prophecies, there was always the fear of being not good enough to defeat Kronos and Gaea or just tackle the next quest. So, I usually cut down school time… Let's say over 3 years of it with the mist, other reason being so my mom had less chance of being attacked. What? I wasn't just going to buy myself a place to live. I had basically no money, and Poseidon didn't seem willing to help. There was also the issue of bullies. After a while, I couldn't contain it anymore, and… Permanent damage was caused. Chiron was always such a bitch about it, saying attacking mortals was beneath us. I know, racism, right? The fuck, if I wanted to be human i would act like one. I was a son of Poseidon, and never excelled in emotional control anyways.

Me and mom also spoke less than what I told Annabeth. I had a suspicion she knew, but never brought up the topic. Fuck, here I am, thinking about the shit that was my life while beating a piece of flint and steel. Oh, but that's minecraft, you say? Well, it worked, and people use it all the time.

I fiddled with the bracelet again, feeling the white string and the crystals shake slightly in the wind. I pulled out a few threads of yarn, and started beading it, with whatever I could find. I looked at the disgusting piece of jewelry and threw it away, stomping on the piece of crap.

I fell asleep against a trunk that night.

 **-(00)-**

I used yet another set of his own attacks against Lance, stunning the kid slightly. While I wasn't sure what to think about him, I had no other thoughts. It's strange, not being able to conjure any thought while having ADHD. Lance took several deep breaths, and gulped down some water. There was a visible change in his energy, being fueled once again.

I threw a punch, and then several other strikes. Lance was confused at first, but soon understood. This was a dodging exercise. It was always good to calculate which strikes could be taken without damage and which were best to dodge. There were brief moments where he seemed to flow like water, grasping some fundamentals of fighting. As short as they were, the two or so days of training had slight changes. He could utilize his instincts better, but the strategy part of fighting would come soon. I started bringing more variety into the strikes, going occasionally fast and sometimes slow. Lance fumbled and caught several strikes, and fell over. I splashed some water over him. After a short break, we would be having another spar, to see how he used those skills. I showed the other class yet another technique, and sat down. You really didn't use specific moves in small groups of fighters, it was better to just know what not to do and what should be done. Knowing the correct stance and timing and how to swing a sword was better than some fancy trick.

I paired Lance with some other kid, and whistled, marking the beginning of the match. Lance and the kid slowly approached each other, with both contenders starting to move left and right as they remembered some of my teachings. Kicks, pushes, and punches were thrown. Lance was a quick learner, but facing someone who had undergone more training was an impossible situation. The whole "fight" lasted around 27 seconds, mostly spent before the first attack. Lance eventually tired the other kid out, but it was technically a loss for him, since in skill he was at a loss. Lance seemed somewhat pleased with himself, and the other kid shook his hand. That was another thing about demigods. For some reason, we just seemed to have more stamina than humans, even if we were scrawnier.

I remembered outrunning everyone in grade 3 by 5 laps… Suck it, assholes.

Lance returned, and soon the group had prepared dinner while I boiled a bit of water. Lance seemed more lively than usual, probably the laughs and campfires and marshmallows. Don't ask where we found sticks… Those were a rarity.

"Cult!" Someone yelled.

I jumped out of my seat, and rushed to where the voice had come from. I stared in frustration as the convoy of vehicles approached us… The bastards. Lance ran with surprising agility, not even catching his breath.

"Get out! Everyone else with a gun, with me!" Lance looked at me, and I nodded. Fuck, anyone who could control water was an advantage.

One of our people fired a shell at the second vehicle, and chucked our last Molotov grenade at it. When it didn't quite explode, I fired two shots at it. The vehicle erupted in an explosion of petroleum-induced flames, and stopped a few others in their tracks. I rushed at the first one, and pulled the driver out of his seat. I killed the other without a thought moments later, tossing their loaded weapons away. I hopped out and swiped Kronos at its passengers, and with one strike, they all died. Lance took cover at the truck. Some of his bruises were healing… Healing. Was he being empowered by the darkness? Was this the result of staying in that cocoon? Lance looked pretty surprised himself, staring at his hands in wonder… I ripped off the car door from its hinges, and tossed the shield at Lance. He caught it, appearing to have no problems with it.

"Hide. If they show up, run or kill them with the shield." I ordered. Lance gulped in anxiety.

I dashed to the third truck, it's passengers getting ready to unload or provide cover fire. I roared, and Kronos glowed with gold energy. The truck was sliced apart seconds later, and I looked at the dead humans. If only they weren't insane…

I jumped back as a bullet almost pierced my shoulder, thank you demigod reflexes for dodging bullet! I grimaced and blocked another large bullet with Kronos, and fired towards the rifleman. I heard a squelching sound somewhere distant… So I guess I hit the target? I had no clue. While my first experience avoiding bullets was that skeleton dude, I did just block it (something impossible for humans unless the guy aimed right where your sword was going). Riptide was a beast at directing energy away from my arms, and it seemed Kronos was as well. After that, Annabeth dragged me into the arena, "testing which caliber of bullet could make my arms shake for the entire day" and "testing how many consecutive rounds from an M16a1 i could dodge in one minute", and let me tell ya, it wasn't fun. Well, my speed went up A LOT after the exercise, but there was a reason we only used paintball guns and crossbow bolts to test speed.

Seeing the new exercise opportunity, I hopped in front of one of my trusty allies, and parried an unfortunate bullet away from his position. The man looked surprised, but continued once realizing that I was blocking him away from any harm. He fired over my shoulder, and I ducked low to make sure I wasn't reduced to Percy-pasta. I sped forward and slid under a truck, disemboweling a poor cultist. Fuck, there was a wealth of them left, and we were barely holding the position.

Billy started up a truck, and our breaths stopped as a raging cultist charged him… For a moment, I thought there would be another casualty, but a resounding boom shook us. Gwen stood in the distance, watching through a scope as the cultist tumbled over and died… Lance was shielding himself against the repeated bashing of a cultist.

BOOM!

A resounding explosion of gore and blood painted the area. The cultist Lance had been holding out against had suddenly become a pasty paint. For a moment, Lance was confused for a moment, before he seemed to realize that the red coating his shield was what remained of the cultist. I thought he would have been sick, or shocked, or something. I thought I would've had to pull him off to the side and get him back to reality, but none of that happened.

If anything, he looked disappointed, like he wanted to see what he could do and wasn't able to practice in time. Again, what the hell? His eyes met mine and I gave him a silent order: talk later. He understood, and went to take cover behind another, better-looking vehicle. His shield was keeping him alive, blocking even the larger bullets, which he used to provide a sort of distraction. Myself and the others that had stayed behind fired on any cultist we saw, but they were too busy in trying to kill Lance to do much about it.

Another cultist had just fallen, shot down by one of the veterans of our group… I think his name was Cardin? Carl? It began with a C, I know that much. Anyway, as we fired on the cultists, Lance would occasionally make a shielded run from one car to another, cursing at the cultists and mocking them to keep their attention on him. I'll be the first to admit hearing the scrawny fourteen year old demigod calling the cultists' church 'failing,' and 'believing in two false gods that were equal to two steaming piles of shit.' That last one really got the cultists riled up. "Your soul shall be damned, heretic!" one of the cultists shouted as they fired their entire clip at Lance's position, mainly just hitting the car. "Oh look, a third of humanity's problems! How are you doing today?" Lance called back, sounding rather sarcastic.

One of my trainees grinned as he took out another cultist. Kronos was a blur as I blocked another bullet. Lance kept shouting curses. That's pretty much how the rest of the gunfight went.

 _GRRRR!_

You know, I'm beginning to wonder if these things were designed specifically to always show up at the wrong time. All of us, including the remaining cultists, turned to face the newly arrived monsters. There was a much larger number of wolves, bears, and boars, each kicking up a cloud of dust behind them, giving the impression that a dust storm was coming in. It was a storm, alright, just not dust.

Lance was already joining us, his eyes wide as he stared at the cloud. Guess being around the monsters twenty-four/seven really left an impression on him, because all his bravado drained along with the color of his face. I placed a hand on his shoulder to keep him grounded. It did bring him back, but the color was still gone. Still, even I couldn't take on that many of them, even with the backup I had. "Alright, everyone! Let's get out of here!" I called, rounding up everyone from our group. The cultists looked like they were meeting their favorite celebrities. Good for them. That meant there were fewer people I had to worry about.

We grabbed what we could in supplies and weapons, and hightailed it out of there. The cultists made for a nice distraction for the monsters while we ran for our lives. Even though they were happy to die, I could still hear their screams of agony, even when we were a few hundred yards out. Guess they really enjoyed the monsters' company, even when being torn to shreds.

Still, it was enough for us to get a head start, and gave of plenty of time to catch up with the rest of the group. We weren't out of the woods yet… both literally and metaphorically. The veterans handed out as many weapons as possible, giving one to anyone that could fight. Even Lance managed to hold a gun properly.

The monsters were already charging at us by the time we'd prepared enough to fight back. Our engineers had been quick, establishing barricades from old metal and wood junk we'd collected. Everyone was scattered a little from each other, giving the others ample room to aim and fire.

I looked up and emptied a looted rifle. Lance had already planted his shield into the ground, riptide's pen form In his hands ready to spring out. I simply emptied my shotgun and started picking them off with Kronos, until a wolf ran up to Lance.

Almost like a bullet, Lance drew Riptide like a katana, cleaving the wolf into two. I whistled, and the kid looked quite sheepish at the end. Riptide's machinery could transform into a sword in nanoseconds, but to use that as an advantage was great. Too bad it wasn't a katana. Well, they weren't the best, and there was a reason why people use other swords too. A katana was a somewhat good sword, but there were other options with their own strengths and weaknesses. Demigods usually only used weapons invented in western civilization, and since the gods had been to all those places, demigods could master those specific weapons much quicker.

Halberds, tridents, longswords, yes, even assault rifles. But making celestial bronze alloy for bullets was just too damn hard. I grinned and finished off the last of the monsters.

 **-(00)-**

Night had fallen quickly. The cracked moon hung still in the midnight sky, a constant reminder of what this world had become. We were out of the (barely) forested areas of what I had guessed to be Pennsylvania and more towards plains and flatlands. The trip from our large skirmish with the monsters had been a long one, but everyone had been quick to move, so we made some very good progress. At least half a day's walk had been covered in only hours, even with the engineers scavenging whatever they could after the battle. Empty weapons were kept for either spare parts, or for scrap metal once we had a place up and running, with a crafting station and everything.

We had set up camp at the crest of a large hill, plating makeshift walls and having plenty of people patrol and scout for any signs of monsters or cultists. For the most part, it looked like the bandit problem had died off easily enough, so I wasn't too worried about bandits. Yet.

It was at that moment that Lance and I had been resting in our room. Lance was on his bed, twirling Riptide's pen around in his hands, and I was sitting in an appropriated chair, cleaning my personal shotgun and pistol with my control of water, and a semi-clean rag. Already the signs of wear were beginning to show, with the shotgun's barrels having been warped and expanded at the ends and the pistol's firing pin was darkened. I cleaned off as much residue and built-up grime as I could, and dried off the pieces with my water control and the rag. Once both weapons were back together, I set them down and turned my chair to face Lance.

He already knew what I had planned on talking about, so he sighed in resignation and started off with, "You wanted to talk?" He didn't even look at me, just kept staring at the ceiling. A part of me was annoyed that he didn't look at me to talk, but the sympathetic part of me that had somehow survived this long knew he was nervous. "Yeah," I responded, leaning forward so that I could get a better bearing on Lance.

It worked, and he sat up, his eyes keeping on Riptide the whole time. At least he was facing in my direction. "So," I began. "Want to tell me about how you healed so quickly before?" Annabeth had always told me I had been completely blunt and never thought ahead, but I figured the best way to get information was to be upfront and direct. No pussyfooting around like politicians. Lance's head lowered. "I… I don't know," he grumbled. It was like talking to a seven year old that thought they were in trouble. I honestly couldn't give two shits if it was a power or if it was from having dealt with being in a nest for so long, so long as Lance didn't plan on using it against any of us.

"Okay, well then can you tell me how you possibly managed to watch someone explode and-" Wait. Survival… Fuck, I'd mistaken his ignorance of violence for insanity. Well, actually it was perfectly logical.

"Come on, I think you know the answer. I've seen a couple of videos too. If you just… If I was some random other teenager who played video games, or just about any other teenager, the worst reaction would be mild shock and surprise. Plus, I've seen worse."

I frowned. He did say something about being tortured… Well, that wasn't how trauma worked. I'd seen the most of it, being around war veterans and all. I remembered the first time I saw a demigod getting ripped apart… There was not much guilt, no anger and sadness, just… A little surprise and disgust at the smell. I visited his grave a few times, but it only gave me insight to the dangers of life.

It was different for everyone… Some people gained PTSD at mere car accidents, while for some, they were even happy after years of war. I guess I oversaw all these facts. But… Could it be that his mind simply became "immune" to violence and closed itself up to cope with the pain? I learned a few tricks from Mr. D, but I was no psychiatrist. Ah, well, if that wasn't the case, then it was merely the will to survive. The apocalypse had rebooted many of our minds, putting aside morals and petty violence for the drive to survive.

Well, you're no exception, right? Annabeth had told me, how our society was perfectly built in a way to combat mental illness derived from trauma. Gory fiction to build a resistance to violence, tragic tales to understand pain… There was only the few naive and fools who lived under rock, and those were the weak. Even after thousands of years, it was still the same rule… Only the strong live.

"Well… You have any ideas where it came from?" I asked.

Lance thought for a second. "Honestly, I thought it was pretty obvious. Does staying inside a cocoon meant to breed monsters help?"

I nodded. Well, it did make sense to a certain degree. "Let's test it." I smirked.

 **-(00)-**

"Hell yeah!" Lance shouted happily as he punched the ground, creating several small webs of cracks.

Sigh…

Alright, maybe he also learnt faster in the night? I motioned the hyperactive Lance over, and got into fighting stance.

"Can you see properly?" I asked. Due to demigod senses, I could see pretty clearly, with all the stars and moon making decent lighting.

Lance nodded again, and got into stance. I repeated the basic hand-to-hand combat warm ups, and finished by showing Lance a few kicks as well. What fun to teach your sibling! In combat, everyone could sink in and forget their troubles. Of course, this wasn't always the best, as too much instinct based fighting could ruin tactics and logic. I could tell at this point, by the way he fiddled with his pockets, that he wanted to learn Riptide.

Without saying anything, I motioned for him to wait where he was, while I went over to grab one of our makeshift shields. Lance's look of confusion told me everything, so when I grabbed the shield and hurled it at him like a deadly Frisbee, I had half-expected him to duck, having his demigod instincts kick in, but he surprised me with this. Rather than duck down, Lance moved off to the side, catching the shield and spinning with it. He was nowhere near as reactive as this during the day. Must be the strange powers...

Still, he caught it which was pretty damn impressive. "What's this for?" he asked, looking the shield over with a scrutinizing gaze. "It's for our next practice session. You're going to use it in our spar after I teach you how to properly handle Riptide."

The look he gave in response could only be described as adorable. His eyes had gotten so large I felt he might shatter his skull, and the way tears welled up in them had me believe he might start crying any moment, now. But he kept himself strong and told me, "Are you serious? Oh hell yeah!" He pumped his fist in the air. I took a blunt weapon and a battle ready stance. Already Lance had the shield strapped to his arm and brought out Riptide, beaming with pride even though his blade was no more than a glorified dagger at this point.

"All right then, in this wasteland, you'll encounter many foes with combat experience, but rarely a real weapon." We'd gone over this plenty of times before, but I wanted him to be at his peak performance in our spar. Something told me that it would be interesting this time around. So I went through the basic exercises again, from the proper stance to the way a sword was meant to be held. Lance went through those easy enough. After that came simple fighting techniques, like a simple overhead swing, a thrust, and a slash. Again, Lance passed through those easy enough. Slowly, I had him transition from the more basic moves to a more advanced move set. It was here I found him having difficulty. Either the myrmidons only taught him the basics, or the godly energy in his body took heavier a heavier toll on him whenever he started to get more physical. There was a reason Type B demigods were considered the 'mages' of the bunch. Still, he was making some progress. The first written technique he learnt was a disarming technique, which I decided to have him use in practice first to force him to learn it quicker.

"Okay Lance, to start, I'll be holding this… Whatever your enemy is holding out, and I want you to use that move to knock the wrench from my hand. Think you can do that?" I asked. He nodded furiously before taking cover behind the shield. I would like to mention that it was probably because I had surprised attacked him so many times during training, mainly to help him develop his instincts. Mostly, they ended with him on the losing side of a spar before I would stop and let him join the others. Still, at least he learned a little.

Riptide gleamed as it slid against the improvised weapon i held, both weapons glinting in the moonlight. Lance was grinning as he tensed. I gave him a nod, and Lance was in motion, his arm and blade swirling through the motion before I found The pipe/wrench sharply knocked from my hands. The weapon clattered across the ground, skidding to a halt about three feet away.

I nodded, rubbing my wrist as I went to pick it up. "That was good, but you were a bit choppy towards the end there. Just relax and keep focus. Now, we're going to do this again." I grabbed the thing and took the same position as before, letting Lance cross weapons with me.

"Now, usually the first thing a 'survivor' will do is wait for you to engage, or use whatever they think is correct." I showed him a sloppy strike, and Lance prowled on the weapon, twisting my wrist and bending it out of harm's way.

I nodded happily and repeated several random encounters, from various different positions and directions as well, to better prepare him against multiple opponents and ambushes.

"Let's move on a little. Remember, riptide is sharper and stronger than whatever the mortals can come up with, so be cautious, alright?" I slashed the pipe at Riptide, and the lead instrument fell into two pieces, with one hitting Lance in the forehead.

"Owwwww…" He rubbed his head.

Huh.

"Also mind that Riptide basically destroys any shield or armour." I pulled the shield away from Lance, and motioned him forward to attack. I raised to block, and wasn't surprised to find the shield cleanly slashed in half. Lance whistled appreciatively. Ugh… Gwen is going to kill me.

"Don't let that get to your head, though!"

I picked up the two pieces and continued an onslaught of metal scrap, Lance barely being able to defend himself. We were going to need better shields…

Around midnight was when I decided to kick things off. "Alright, Lance. Now that you're more familiar with combat, let's go for another spar, eh?" I could see the fear in him, the way he kept glancing off to the side warily, like he was trying to find any possible escape route.

But, I saw something else, too. Something besides fear. He was tensed, but more like he was about to charge in rather than run away. When I looked into his eyes, I could see his determination. I couldn't help but smile. I guess he'd grown up some more in these past few days. His grip on Riptide was tight, but his hands weren't shaking like they used to. Good. I had a feeling this spar would show me what Lance could really do. That was the hope, anyway.

Still, I didn't want to make it _too_ easy for him. Kronos was out in a flash, already forming itself to become a khopesh. I was getting better at wielding it in scythe form, but I still preferred swords the most. I considered my arsenal for a second… No, the hell was I thinking?

I put the weapon away and put up my fists, slipping on a few rings and a brass knuckle in the other. I pulled out a knife on the ringed hand, spinning it for a few seconds.

"Alright Lance, let's dance." Lance grinned, and charged.

 **Omake:**

Percy landed with a grunt as he was thrown out of the white tent, several angry voices behind him. Not two seconds later, Lance was met with a familiar fate, landing face first in the dirt.

Lance managed to pry himself from the ground, leaving an oddly distinct crater as he did. "So, I guess they don't like movies." he muttered

Moments before they were cast out, they were just discussing movies…

" _So, what movies did everyone like?" Gwen asked._

" _Action flicks." John replied._

" _Political or drama films." Came Bran._

" _Has anyone watched Sharktopus?" Billy asked mockingly._

 _Almost everyone in the room groaned at the mention of the terrible low budget film._

" _Hey! That was a good movie!" Percy argued._

 _All eyes turned on him with a dangerous edge._

" _Explain yourself." They spoke in unison._

" _What do you mean explain myself? Sharktopus, Sharknado, even Tremors were masterpieces! They appeal in monsters eating girls in bikinsi!" He yelled._

 _The people gathered, carrying the poor demigod out of the settlement, throwing him out forever._

 _Eventually, the brothers rebuilt society, and everyone was forced to pay tax in the form of low budget ocean monster films. On the other side of the world, films with monsters - especially those with low grade, B-level monsters - were banned._

 **A:N/**

 **Goodsir: alright people, submit your omakes. We'll take anything. Of course, we'll edit it first. Oh, and…**

 **Tell us your opinion and Review!**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: And sound the chorus of angels! We have succeeded in writing another chapter! As Sir Goodsir decreed: We will accept all omake ideas for review, discussion, and perhaps even a jig or two! That, and we do appreciate the mints! Until next time: DEUCE!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:**

 **(IF you're wondering why the update is so late, that's because I was on a trip with no computer access. Chapters 5 and 6 were uploaded on P3pp3r's page, so…)**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: ELLO EVERYONE! WE'VE A NEW CHAPTER! So vicious, so fresh, so FANATICALLY FANTASTIC!**

 **Lance: Think you can write in all caps next? Honestly, you've spent more time goofing off and doing random crap in the background while Achoo and I were actually writing! And I can't write well!**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Bah! You did well, mi amigo! So read the script and we can get on.**

 **Lance: Okay… Wait a minute, where is Achoo?**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Read it. *Points eraser threateningly at Lance***

 **Lance: Fine. Neither one of these authors - specifically the asshat P3pp3r - claims to own RWBY or Percy Jackson.**

 **Goodsir: Help me...**

 **Reviews:**

 **Percyofhellhounds: Thanks, yo! You pointed out some major flaws in our writing. Ah, thought I was just doing some world building… I'll take your advice to heart. All your requests are being considered. If you feel like everything's being rushed, we'll try to slow it down a bit more. As a small counter to your preference for juicy story, I once read it was bad to have dumps and dumps of lore and world building very quickly, so… I'll balance out description and efficiency.**

Dawn was fast approaching by the time Lance and I had finished our spar. He was leagues better than when we first sparred. He moved with an energy and purpose much like when I first found out I was a son of Poseidon and used the creek during capture the flag. Still, by the time first light rolled around, Lance's performance dropped considerably. By the time we'd finished, he was a panting heap on the ground. I was standing over him, smiling as I finally felt a little winded.

Added to that was the fact that I was also tired… Shit, I was going to have to make a schedule.

"Since you seem to be weaker during the day, fight more reservedly and pack a lot of water." I handed him a new canteen, which Lance gladly filled with water.

Lance later offered to carry the black suitcase, which I was glad to have off my hands. Since he was still new to the group and tired, he didn't have any serious load to carry yet.

Gwen approached, her followers carrying pots of soil and growing plants… Damn creativity! The Asian woman handed me a fresh tomato, which I split in half and gave to Lance.

 **-(00)-**

The journey was approaching its end, and we all knew it. The gates, fences, and houses were decreasing by alarming rates, and more plant life was starting to show. An intact lawn… When did I last see that? Gwen reached a hand and swiped a bit of soil. "Fertile land…" She breathed.

And here I was, thinking humanity had advanced scientifically… Well, it's back to the farming days, boys!

"What seeds do we have?" I asked to no one in particular.

"Tomatoes, cucumbers, a few beans, even fewer lettuce… Nothing grain. Oh, we have some potatoes, but only three so."

 _Annabeth chuckled as she patiently answered his question._

" _Yes. Alright class, for homework… Ah, yes. Write me an essay of no shorter than 500 words detailing the historical involvements of type B demigods in mortal history, and another essay of similar length describing all the appearances of type D demigods as well."_

 _The students looked troubled. Just where were they going to get this data?_

" _Of course, the library is open to you all as well, ya lazy bastards."_

 _The frightened demigod children sped out of the classroom._

" _And you!" She pointed at Percy, who was just coming in for a check-in._

" _Write about type B demigods and godly energy! Don't you miss a fucking detail!"_

 _The 14-year-old Percy bulleted out of the room as well, wondering why his friend was so triggered._

 _-Type B Demigods and Whatnot-_

 _By Percy Jackson_

The four quadrants of demigod sub-species serve as a principal foundation of Olympian-mortal relations. If one was to ask Chiron, trainer of heroes about this specific type of demigod, however, he would answer something along the lines of equality and every demigod being the same.

Type Bs are mages wielding godly energy, the fuel of immortal life, as both a catalyst and fuel to power their "spells" as one would call them.

This energy appears as a golden, bright light, however this is a common misconception about the nature of this power. This energy is not restricted to the almost mass-less form of light, but can somehow gain more mass and solidify from photon to molecule, explaining why the hellhound was also pushed back when a beam of godly energy was fired at it.

This also explains how they can solidify and appear as fractals and symbols, as they are, in reality, a form of light that has been solidified into crystal and broken apart.

In fact, a more accurate way to describe godly energy is as a totally different type of matter, one similar to light, but different in its properties. One being its reaction to godly blood. When exposed to a body containing more than 49.99% godly blood, and at least 25% godly energy, godly energy will give the appropriate effects willed upon by the user.

This is why mortals, or any demigod other than Apollo demigods do not have regenerating effects upon contact with light, for light is different from godly light.

 _Annabeth's edits: Not terrible Percy… A few minor mistakes with the information, and a couple of awkward sentences. But I'll leave you to figure that out ;)_

 _Percy released a confused 'huh'. What was wrong with Annabeth? Why didn't she completely roast him with a 5 page essay this time? There was something wrong with the way that wink stared at him too… There was so much wrong with his essay!_

"Is this case good as a blunt weapon?" Lance asked.

The black suitcase…

"Yeah. If you wield it for long enough, it might even become a weapon of _Legend._ " Lance gasped.

"No way!"

I smirked and dismissed the boy. Items of Legend were extraordinarily rare, after all. They were like godly artifacts, but created by the demigods. Riptide was a weapon of Legend itself. They were created after a demigod accomplished quests and great tasks with the said item, and used it for a long period of time. For me… well, Riptide had won us hundreds of battles and spars, so I supposed that arc of energy was its ability? I had no fucking clue.

"So… what now?" Lance sat down on an improvised bench, built entirely from tires and a wooden plank by yours truly.

"I guess… I'll tell you what. I, from the moment I met you, have no clue who you are."

Lance winced visibly, as if hit with a literal hammer of truth.

"There's gaps in my memory, sure. But until I have actual proof, you're… not my brother. I'll still teach you fighting, and I'm sure we'll make great friends one day, but until then, you'll be a survivor. A demigod. Got it?" I didn't know why I was being so blunt, but… I never knew how to feel about things like this. I guess I was just so tired from all this family shit thrown at me from every angle.

Truth is, I didn't feel anything about it. I treated Lance like a friend, a friendship that was ruined by his claim of being brother. He had no real proof to back it up, and I had no proof to say he _wasn't_ my brother. You know how sometimes you just… don't feel anymore when met with difficult situations? Yeah, my life was a big mess of crap I had to carefully tread on.

Lance, thankfully, seemed to understand… After all, what did you expect, hopping into someone's life and claiming you were their lost sibling? The kid sighed and moved off into the distance, and shit, I forgot to give him my empowering speech! Fuck, that could wait until later. As if on cue, the various survivors jogged to the white tent, gathering around.

Gary, Sebastian, and countless others sat, crouched, or stood around the entrance, while Gwen, John, and Bran exited their cozy building. John flipped through a set of notes in his pocket while clearing his throat.

"So, I know all of you are wondering, what's going on?"

Several murmurs of agreement rang throughout the gathering, their raspy and pained voices making it sound like a mob of zombies.

"To be honest, when I started this group, I had no purpose. None but to seek out a hope that we could perhaps preserve the seed of civilization." John scanned the crowd confidently.

"But I stand before you all today, and I already see it planted into the soils of our newly fertilized world." The man paused again.

"With the help of our friends," He looked at me.

"We now have the chance to firmly and permanently plant this seed of humanity into the ground." Excited whispers passed the group, thinking of their promised land.

"Do not be mistaken. The road ahead of us will be long and hard. No man or woman or child will be put to rest in the cradle of mother society unless we all put our best efforts into building a new world."

"And dare to call us optimistic, dare to call us idealistic, but I have no intentions on giving you up to some military organization. We intend to build humanity from the ground up once more, and that will depend on you. Call farming a hard and difficult life. But is it truly worth the risk, putting your life on the line and fighting the monsters that now walk our earth?"

"You've seen firsthand the dangers of a nomadic life. That's why our ultimate goal is no longer to merely survive, but rebuild. No 'government' shall claim us. But all I ask for in return is your hand." Holy shit, John was declaring independence. Get him some fucking papers, and he'd be signing that shit to Mars one day!

The crowd whistled and roared and cheered, bringing good joys to all. John motioned me over.

"Gee, what are you going to do next, outlaw slavery?" I joked, realizing that slavery was probably back in the world once more.

John rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, but returned serious once more. "Beyond this land, is that patch of green we've talked for so long about. Once we get there, we'll locate the nearest river and settle. Heat, food, and plumbing will be our main worries."

"I can handle plumbing. Trust me. I can set up a working bathroom in the middle of a desert." I boasted. Which was true, considering I could see all the ruined pipes under us, and potential places to create large caves to deposit waste. Being a son of Poseidon, setting up a settlement was easy as fuck, mainly thanks to controlling water.

Ability check time!

Making generators powered by abilities? Check.

Working plumbing in two hours? Check.

Irrigation in 20 seconds? Check.

Flat field of great farming-ness in a day? Check.

Having a coherent leadership of a council of people? Still working on that. So far, the only leaders anyone in our little community seemed to listen to were myself, Gwen, Bran, Jessie, and John, and that was mainly because we were the first. Everyone else that tried to come in was met with total resistance from the rest. Guess politics were still a bit skewed after the Apocalypse. Not going to lie though, I do enjoy talking to others that _aren_ ' _t_ trying to push some sort of hidden agenda.

Still, our council was concrete. We didn't have an official meeting hall, we didn't keep as a group all the time, and we certainly weren't forsaking our other duties to become full-time. John was busy writing down and recording all our adventures and past up to this point, using whatever paper we had. It wasn't much, and we'd probably need another way to record our history down soon enough, but we let him do his thing for now.

Jessie was teaching everyone willing to listen how to mend clothes, make bandages, and - most importantly - how to identify which cloth would be useful for keeping cold away. Wool was great, but we only had a few sweaters with that stuff. Silk was a no-go seeing as how everyone present wore mostly modern clothes from the middle class of last society. Plenty of cotton to go around, though. It seemed that bandits and cultists never really learned much.

Bran was always busy helping others form a security force and establishing a perimeter. He'd sometimes get with me and we'd discuss possible areas for scouting and looting, and then we'd pick those we thought would be good for the job. So far, we had an 80% success rate, with only a few hiccups coming from the local bandits, a few cultists sects, but mostly the monsters.

Speaking of monsters, I was currently in a meeting with the others about them. For the past few weeks, many of my trainees had been wondering what to call them, and when I had nothing to offer John perked up and decided to call a meeting for just such an occasion.

"Right," John started. "So we're in agreement that we should establish a name for the monsters to help with recording them and their weaknesses." John confirmed. All around the room everyone nodded. Bran and I came only because we thought it was a smart move to record anything we knew about them, mainly to help trainees understand their weaknesses.

"First, we'll name the monsters as a whole, and then move on from there," John stated, grabbing a pencil and notepad. Names were then thrown around, each sounding both stupid and perfect for the monsters. Shadows. Shadow Beasts. Monsters (Yeah, that one earned a few chuckles). Demons. At one point I had joked about calling them Pies. You could probably predict that it didn't catch on, and I will tell you it didn't. After thirty minutes of discussion, Gwen brought out a book and tossed it on the table in front of everyone. "What about Grimm?" she asked. The book was The Brothers Grimm, though with my dyslexia it looked like Tge Bihmrers Mhoht. Even after the world ended, I still can't read jack shit.

Still, it sounded cool enough. I never read the book, but Annabeth used to tell me that it was like a reference book on how to kill other monsters. I never thought we would run into any other monsters, aside from the usual stray from the Egyptians, but Annabeth thought it was a good book to have regardless. "Just in case," she'd tell me.

"Nah. Although I will say, their faces are kinda Grim." I remarked, trying to lighten the mood. Despite the fact that we were only trying to focus on a name, talking about the monsters killed the mood pretty quickly. Gwen smirked for a second, but became serious immediately after. "I'm serious, though. We're getting nowhere with this naming convention and we've wasted enough time. Besides, it's not like the monsters would try and protest their name, no matter what we gave them."

Bran backed her up quickly. "I like it, mainly because it was one of the only serious names we gave it."

John was quick to speak up. "Are you saying calling them Shadow Monsters isn't serious?" Bran shook his head. "Not going to lie, John, buddy, but Shadow Monsters does seem a little on the nose."

It was at that moment that I decided to come to John's aid. "Yeah, but to be fair they _do_ look like they're made of shadows."

"I thought they were, based on what Lance told us," John questioned.

"How about… How about Creeps?"

"We can just call them monsters, ya know…"

If the mood was getting better in any way, it just died right then and there. I honestly didn't know if Lance was truly my brother, but regardless he was still a person, and a person who was stuck with those _things_ for months. Once in awhile he'd mention what he saw about the monsters while stuck down there, like how they were born, what they brought back, but mostly how they went about on a day-to-day.

From what little snippets we could get from him, these monsters would spend as much time as they could scouring for prey. Sometimes they would bring back remains of a kill to feed to the younger ones, but for the most part just ate where they killed. That was something we already knew, however, so it wasn't much help. Another bit we learned is that they followed pack rules, with the strongest one being the Alpha, even if there were others of the same kind.

Still, we didn't have much on them, and neither Bran nor I would accept sending out a recon team to study them. We needed everyone if we were going to survive this hell, let alone rebuild in it.

Back to the meeting at hand, I figured they could do the naming without me, so I left. I needed to get my head cleared from wondering what had really happened to Lance while he was down there. He was okay-ish during the day, no better than the next person, but when night came around it was another matter entirely. It was like Lance became… 'enhanced' at night. He would fight harder during spars, react quicker, and managed to act like a regular demigod. Though he would always crash the next day.

 **-(00)-**

The green whistled in the land before us, and John collapsed, fully amazed.

"Is that…"

"Grass." I confirmed, not believing it myself. Kay, there _was_ grass in the wastes, but none of it was this… Green. Probably perfect for grazing and farming too, if the talk previously was any indication about soil fertility.

I laughed, brushing my fingers over a tree, and a squirrel skittered past us, hoarding its precious nuts. I had seen trees before, mind you.

"Wow…" Everyone breathed. As far as anyone cared to admit, this was by far the largest patch of green we had ever seen.

And by the looks of it, it was spreading at a good pace, new grass replacing barren but fertile land without seed.

I breathed and sniffed the air.

Water. Lakes. Ponds.

"We're here." Gwen mirrored my thoughts.

She was immediately down to business and stopped admiring the rare sight of a large forest, marking and taking note of the wildlife. Hopefully, her analyzations would be able to help us survive.

"Stop that! You want a forest fire?" Some kid made move to start a fire, but I fixed him with a glare and a harsh scolding.

I motioned John with his fighters over, heading for the first lake I sensed. Around us, birds danced freely, singing their songs of territory. Shit, if the Creeps were here…

"Hey," I nudged John. "What ever did we name those monsters?" John stared at me strangely, as if I had told him about my dick length.

"You didn't hear?"

"Uhhh… You know, weren't lessons put on hold ever since we decided to up our pace?"

"Mutants. Cause, you know, they look like mutated animals." John rationalized.

We hiked in awkward silence, with me considering their choice… Well, with the exception of that hellhound, there was no exception to the animal-ish name they were given.

"So, you training your friend a lot?" John asked.

"Not much as of late, I think I might move to some more survival techniques now." I responded. Well, it wasn't the truth, but it was close enough.

"Is this good?" Bran skirted around a small area around a stream, eyeing the little fish that ran in it. The bastard…

Most people frowned at this. Wasn't the planned settlement, you know, twenty times bigger? Gwen slapped him on the back of his head and dragged him to find another spot.

"I hear another water source further that way!" I yelled to our rather dispersed group. While most people couldn't do this, some people could train to tell where different water sources were by sound.

The hardy group sprawled across the forest, eventually coming across an _almost_ big enough river. Well, more like a large stream.

"No one shits or pisses in the fucking river!" I proclaimed.

The other survivors nodded grimly. "Well, this is as good as it gets…" Gwen noted, marking several spots around us.

I scouted and mapped the area to the best of my abilities with Sebastian and Melli, both visitors from different countries… Well, I doubted the existence of an official government that defined borders and government, but hey, we haven't seen any of them yet.

Finishing up the scouting work, first thing we did was establish a plan of the perimeter. Despite it being quite early, with the sun merely peeking over its nest, removing trees were held off for now. Tents would be set up for the day until we could start producing our own houses, something everyone was quite excited for.

The place was pretty flat, with few inconvenient spots of soil. With a few controlled quakes, I pushed the soil downwards, and used the most to make it look like it was always that way. Melli drew a few lines on the ground, marking the different sites of construction that would soon to be set up. Sebastian, her fellow plane passenger, set up our tables and stoves.

Stove fuel and gasoline was rare, one of the major reasons we didn't keep any generator or chainsaw that we came across.

Our other focus was a working "freezer", essentially a warehouse with an assload of containers and those keep-cool packs. In the estimated winter, holes would most likely be used as a fridge too.

One of our younger members in this group of sixty or so sweeped the branches and pebbles away and set up a metal ring for a central campfire, completed with a hanger.

Billy the chef, some old guy who passed his average diner to his son years back, filled the pot with unnecessary amounts of water, and started chopping up various ingredients. Jessie brought out our looted spices. The soups/stews always resulted in something along the lines of chili, at least what I could remember of it.

I barged my way past those spectating the water, and started collecting various materials around the banks. I built and collected more and more, eventually ending up in some kind of large tower. The group watched in silence as I used my hereditary abilities to set up what was possibly the world's largest water filtration device.

I fetched a pail of river water, and handed it to Gwen. "Give it a go."

Gwen poured the contents inside the machine, and the liquid slowly drizzled down, coming out of a hole, which Gwen quickly moved her bowl to. On the other side, a splash landed on the ground. The impurities would be useless, anyways.

"Alright, i'm going to get some worms." Gwen said, finishing the water.

"Worms? What for?" I was quite confused.

"We can get them to keep the land arable. If I can get a bucket of them, they'll be able to eat whatever compost we give them and produce some… I don't know what to call it, but it's excellent for crops."

Apparently that was a thing. Now, you may have wondered why we didn't just use human shit for farming, but apparently that was a dangerous practice. Yeah, since we ate a lot of different shit, our feces had a higher chance of containing disease, added to the fact that our land was arable anyways, there was no need to use shit. If our crops got bigger, than we could use animals and their shit (thanks Katie).

Plus, ew! What the fuck!

Anyways, it was a work in progress. After the daily meeting/report, I volunteered to try and set up plumbing. Plan was, that I'd get our water from somewhere else than the stream. Said water being the lake a short walk away.

I collected all of our pipes and sighed. Fucking plumbing…

I dove in the lake, controlling the water to dig a tunnel towards the settlement. I swam through the collapsing earth, until I reached the water filter I set up minutes before. Pipes and tools were pushed around, and I started filling up the tunnel to simply wrap around the the pipelines.

When I returned to the calm lake, I placed a filter, hopefully blocking any insect or fish from entering. I turned around and my eyes widened. A fish!

 _Hey, it's Percy Jackson!_

 _Yeah, it's me. Well, can you tell your friends to stay away from this pipe here?_

 _You got it, sir. Even if Olympus is gone, we'll continue serving our lord!_

I smiled and hopped out.

 **-(00)-**

Training sessions were held off until the meeting was over, but I decided to visit Lance anyways. I had some special training in mind that only we as demigods could do.

I found him quick enough. He was staying at my place, having refused a place with the other trainees or teenagers. He was sitting by the front door, twirling a stick absently as he kept his eyes on the room walls. Either that or he was looking beyond the walls. His blank look made it hard to tell.

When he saw me, his eyes became full of life again, just like when we first met. He dropped his stick and jumped to his feet. "How was the meeting?" he asked. I shrugged. "Nothing really happened. All we did was discuss that water I set up." He followed me inside, looking curiously Riptide's briefcase before I retrieved it. His curiosity then set on me before I explained, "We're going to train."

I could practically see the question marks floating above his head. "I thought all training had ceased for the time being. Is there something wrong?" questioned Lance. I shook my head. "No, but because you're a Type B, I figured you'd need to practice your control over magic. And no offense, but I'm willing to bet the monsters didn't exactly let you have any free time while trapped with them." I knew it was still a sour point for Lance whenever he had to remember that pit. I could relate, somewhat, because of my experience in Tartarus. Granted, I wasn't trapped, but that didn't exactly make it better.

His grimace was all I needed to know. Not wanting him to flashback, I grabbed his shoulder and gave a light squeeze. "You're out of that place now. This is real." I assured him. Though he didn't look entirely convinced, he nodded and motioned for me to lead on. Good. Because even though we were starting to rebuild, and he said we were brothers, at that point I was more focused on making sure everyone we had was at their best. So for a Type B like Lance to have fallen out of practice with magic was a no-go for me.

I led him out of the recent settlement, letting the guard at the gate know I was heading out to the nearby forest to train with Lance. Some may have thought I was showing favoritism, and they were probably right, but only because Lance was a demigod. Even though he wasn't anywhere near an adequate Type C's level in physical combat prowess, having a Type B wouldn't just tip the scales in our favor, it'd take the entire scale and flip it on its side, if for the healing abilities _alone_. Though, since there was never any record of a Type B from Poseidon, I wasn't exactly sure where his abilities shined the brightest, which was part of the reason I brought him for training. That, and because there were some things that just weren't sitting right with me about him.

For starters, he was a Type B of Poseidon, but he was also down in that monster pit for a long time. When I had found him he had black 'veins' going into him, and it didn't take a genius to know that whatever was in those veins went into Lance. A part of me wondered if he could have been… 'corrupted.' Would that be the right term for what happened? Corrupted? Changed? Infused… It didn't really matter what I called it. Something happened to him and made him different. Finding out exactly how was another part of this training session.

For thirty minutes we walked, the forest to our front and the settlement to our backs. We walked in silence, neither of us having really much to say. Lance was left to his own thoughts, and I was left to mine. So I let my mind wander, my ADHD kicking in and noticing every little detail I could find.

Lance and I wore similar attire. Due to me essentially taking the role of general, I had access to some of our freshest supply. None of it was a perfect fit, but we usually just wore anything until they became rags. Despite the fact that our settlement was just starting

Finally, we reached the forest's edge. The sun was just at its peak, so we had plenty of time to train before dark. We walked for about fifty yards into the forest. I wanted to keep some barrier between us and the settlement. Plus, there was a creek about ten yards off to our left. At least I could get some training in, too.

"Alright, Lance," I began, setting down Riptide's case. "Now we get to the training. First off, I want you to tell me what you learned while on Olympus." Lance appeared rather nervous as he answered, "Well, this is usually kept under wraps, and I don't have a good analogy, but I know some basic combat spells, and anything in the way of illusions are scrying and light."

I nodded. Mist control and scrying were perfect abilities to have, especially right now. "How good's your scrying?" I asked. "I can scry someone as far away as two miles, but it taxes the hell out of me. Any farther and my head gets a migraine." Well at least it was something. "Alright, then what about the few basic powers?"

Lance raised his right hand, and a glow began to emanate from it. It was hard to see at first, but when he held it under the shade of a tree, it was easy to see. "Obviously you don't know much, but… Imagine godly magic like sewing. The gods are so good at this they can sew a cloth without a needle while their eyes are closed." Lance brushed his fingers on the tree, and he flinched when it was covered in a black matter. Lance moved his hand away, and the matter was gone. The kid continued, but wary.

"We, the mortals, however, require a needle, in other words, a catalyst…Something like a glyph. Due to me being trained on Olympus, I can cast a few spells without a catalyst."

I frowned. It was… Confusing. "But what about the Apollo demigods and their healing? Can't they cast it without a catalyst?" I asked.

"It's an easy spell. Healing is practiced so often that even demigods can cast it with a thought. However, healing is merely a channeling of godly energy. For any type B to use the magic you see the gods do, we'll need some sort of catalyst."

"So… Godly magic goes beyond moving aura and channeling it?" I asked.

"Yep. Imagine the basic magic demigods do as walking, and godly spells as writing. It's simply more complicated, and has to be taught." Lance explained.

"Okay… Now, you somehow covered that tree with the black stuf-"

"I don't want to talk about it." He said sternly.

"Well… Let's move back to healing." I picked a shard of Riptide, and slipped my thumb on it, drawing a few lines of blood. While I still wasn't completely clear on the magic concept, I had a better understanding of it now.

Lance huffed and palmed his hand above mine, with a soft glow appearing not moments later. I drew back my hand, satisfied.

"Basic shit…" He mumbled.

Lance held his hand out, and a spinning circular glyph/fractal hovered over his index finger, only slightly bigger than his finger. Slowly, several others appeared on each of his respective digits.

I whistled. "What's this for?"

Lance grunted. "Not much. I can condense it to become stronger, but that would be a waste of energy. Oh, that, and I get a decent range boost." He dispelled the repeating glyph and looked at me with arms crossed. "Alright," I said. "Show me what you know in combat spells."

He looked around, probably searching for a useful target. When he found none he settled on the largest tree nearby. His palms were raised out, as if he were halting someone, the glow in his hand intensified, and a bolt of energy flew from his hand, striking the tree bark, denting and scorching the trunk. But the dent was hardly more than a centimeter in. The scorch marks were barely black around the center of impact. He threw another bolt, striking the same tree, but again it wasn't much of an impact.

"Think you can manage one more?" I asked. Honestly I expected him to stop there, seeing as how he was barely standing, but he gave a weak nod. Once again he raised his hand, and once again the tree was dented, less so this time. Lance had already lost the strength to stand, having landed blunty on his bottom. The guy looked ready to pass out, but he managed a weak smile. "That good for you?"

Sweat was already beginning to cake his clothes, but I gave him a thumbs up. "Yeah, man that was pretty good." He smiled with what little strength he could spare, and laid flat on the ground. He'd earned a rest, for the time being. Now it was my turn to train. I closed my eyes and focused on feeling for water. A side effect from controlling water was that eventually you learned to have a 'feel' for it. The river was easy enough to sense. I could feel its presence, rushing forth like an unstoppable army, yet calming like a summer's breeze.

My gut tugged at itself as I slowly took control of the river, bringing a large bubble of water towards me. I could feel the water tug at me, being somewhat more difficult to control that saltwater, but I held it together. The first thing I did with the water was move it around, trying to make different shapes with it. I made a horse, a sword, a tree, a house, even a miniature mountain, but the more I went on the more I felt my stomach start to ache.

It was then I decided to take it to the next level. The water bubble twisted and elongated, forming a large basic spear of water, before separating into small spears. Now my stomach was aching, but not much. Kind of like when you eat something that doesn't agree with you. It was almost like that. But it wasn't going to stop me. I spread my arms out, spreading out the spears as well. I counted twelve spears, each about three feet long. They were pure water, clear as the sky above, glistening as it shimmered under my control.

A grunt escaped me as I thrust my hands forward, bringing the spears charging forward as well. The clear water spears raced towards the tree Lance had been firing at, most splashing harmlessly against the bark. A couple managed to chip the bark before breaking apart. My stomach was complaining now, telling me to stop before I vomited. Guess there was some waters I still needed practice controlling. At least I had a new goal in mind, just another reason to get stronger.

Lance was panting less now, slowly catching his breath. He managed to sit up, bags already forming under his eyes. "Amazing," he breathed. I felt some small pride that I had impressed Lance, but only a tiny amount. The kid did say he'd heard stories about me growing up, which were all probably exaggerated as most Greek stories were.

My stomach rumbled in protest as I brought another, smaller bubble of water over, 'breaking' it in half and sending one half towards Lance, and the other over my head. I held my arms up in concentration. It made controlling it a little easier when I had something to focus on. The moment I dropped my hands, the water dropped on us. While it wasn't saltwater, it was refreshing enough to dull the stomach ache. Lance looked a little better too, like he just had a small dose of caffeine was just a little more aware of his surroundings.

Splashes cut through the silence of the forest as I shuffled my way over to Lance. Controlling freshwater really took a number out on me, but I didn't mind. This exhaustion was only temporary, and I would get stronger. I had to. For everyone I lost.

Lance was now leaning back on his hands, letting the mud crawl between his fingers, smiling as he looked up to the sky. "You know, Olympus may have been the home of the gods, but never did it have this." He gestured to the trees surrounding us, sweeping his hand wide and falling on his side. "The gods thought everything of theirs had to be perfect, but it still wasn't as good as this." Lance said, propping himself back up.

The sun was still high in the sky, so I sat down next to him, letting the cool mud slide across my hands as I joined him. We sat there in silence, letting the water seep into our clothes and the mud stain them. We listened to the sounds of the forest, the rustling of trees against the wind, the babbling of the nearby river. It was peaceful. For once, I could say it was peaceful.

For minutes we sat there, resting ourselves in comfortable silence, before Lance spoke up. "You know, I'm sure Father would be proud." I looked over, curious about his remark. "Oh? And what makes you say that?" He shrugged. "Father was never as overbearing as Zeus. He was like an actual father, when he wanted to be. I remember the first time he visited me, how much pride he had in his eyes. Gods, brother, he could not stop talking about you. He told me how you made him so proud, as both a father and a god, and that he knew you were strong." He looked over, a smile on his face. "Honestly, when we first met, I thought you were another hallucination, that the creatures had finally found a way to truly torment But you were real, and you saved me. No matter what, Perseus, I owe you my life. Whether or not you believe I'm your brother doesn't matter."

I waved him off, smirking as I did. "I don't know about being brothers, but you don't owe me anything. Being a demigod means saving as many people as you can, whether you're pulling them out of harm's way or fighting monsters while everyone else lives on with their lives. And we're the last two demigods in existence, Lance. I'm not about to let you die anytime soon. I'm not sure about us being brothers, but we're family nonetheless." That seemed to satisfy Lance enough, given that he was nodding his head with a half smile. "Very well brother. I'll try to refrain from dying. Deal?" "Deal." I agreed, nodding. Seeing as how we were both tired from training and we were out in the forest, I figured it was time for us to head home. My legs burned as I pushed myself up, but I ignored them for the most part and rose back up. Once that was out of the way, I offered a hand to Lance. He grabbed hold, and it took both of us to lift him up.

By the time the sun was reaching mid-afternoon, we were already shuffling our way back to the settlement. From far away it looked like it was a pile of scrap, which meant people were probably going to go through for anything useful. At least we had cover in case anyone was looking for a settlement to raid. For the time being anyway. That's one reason why we trained our forces.

From a fair distance away, I saw Gwen and her followers clearing out a space for our agricultural thingies. I turned back to Lance. "What's this I hear about a catalyst?"

Lance considered his words, before answering. "Honestly, glyphs and runes are the chamber required for a mortal to cast godly spells. Other than that… Gemstones are actually good catalysts, as they are technically prisms, and godly energy is technically light. So, any gemstone carved into a good prism is nice. Plastic prisms won't work since plastic has no magic, not to mention plastic melts under the pressure of casting magic."

I nodded. That made more sense… Man, we really needed to make a trip to dad's realm. Well, not today! I have to escort the supply run!

 **A:N/**

 **Goodsir: Well, there was that. No omakes today, I'm afraid. Remember to smash that like button, and subscribe if you haven't. Wait a minute-**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Dammit! And to think I brought the bananas and C4 for nothing! Now all that is wasted! *trudges off to use C4 before it expires* Hope to see you all in the next chapter! Until next time: DEUCE!**

 **Lance: *in the distance*: don't forget to review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:**

 **Goodsir:**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Good show I say! Good show! I do believe we're getting into right kicker chapters now!**

 **Lance: And you decided to act like a British Port because...?**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: In the words of a wise Catholic priest: Because it's f**kin' fun!**

 **Percy:**

"You ready to go?" I asked the scavengers, readying Kronos to defend at the slightest motion.

The two, Sebastian and Mike, a Korean tourist, nodded and loaded the cans onto our truck. Lawn mowers… Oil… Food… Tools…

Vehicles were very scarce, most being wrecked beyond repair when the earthquakes happened. To see that the cultists had so many… We looted a working truck, one abandoned from the battle we had earlier. That said, our loot was unusually high… Enough food for three days, but once we got the farms going, I imagined I would spend less time scavenging for food.

"Hurry up, ya twats!" I shouted to the two.

Mike hurried out of the store in his new "borrowed" jacket, still dark blue with white stripes on it. Well, we took what we thought was useful, and a jacket was definitely useful.

Sebastian double checked our supplies, making sure we got everything the settlement needed. There were also a few books, though, as you can imagine, i didn't make use of the English language in reading too often. We headed back, and I was pleased by the faint traces of vegetation that grew at the gas station. Most of the plant life outside our little settlement was no better than dead, most trees being charred and dusty remnants of the past, but it seemed that as time moved on, nature returned once more.

"Shotgun." The two shouted at the same time. Mike laughed and gave the keys to Sebastian anyways, being someone that had no experience with vehicles.

In the matter of foreign relations, we were quite lucky. Most of the tourists we picked up either spoke some, or at least understood English. Jessie and Gwen swapped around frequently for tutoring duties, Gwen having experience in the matter, while Jessie was a great storyteller.

I've yet to come across any Greek speaking individual, the language being quite easy to pick up. Despite what someone else might tell you, the Greek demigods spoke was an ancient dialect, now completely forgotten in the passage of time, and assured to be uninterpretable to mortals by Athena. Despite this, it had similarities to modern Greek, and thankfully the dyslexia was kind to it.

I had actually considered moving to Greece once, but decided against it, and dear gods, the food was fucking terrible. It was then I understood why the gods never ate mortal food in the myths… It was disgusting! And dear Poseidon, the fish! [ _why… :(]_

I loaded myself on the back of the truck, making sure none of the contents spilled out. At the back, i would be able to actually protect the scavengers.

 **-(00)-**

There were scarce pickings of mutants as we rolled past the now familiar land, coming back to our new home. The first of the farmlands and scarce portions of the wall were already in effect.

The people crowded us, probably amazed by the fact that we had a functioning truck.

"Hey." John said. He wasn't one for much words, and most likely a quiet person, but his ability as a leader was appreciated. His talent for leading was in good effect, keeping morale up and making good developments in his training.

Lessons were still not put back up completely, with most of us contributing to the cause of building. "Hey," John said. "Miracle that you could set up the water pump. It's nice to finally have some of the American Dream."

I chuckled and waved my goodbyes. In the distance, I could see Bran making notes and Gwen monitoring the planting of our crops. Billy was once again cooking, it was stew once more! Me? I slept my ass off for the training tonight.

After dinner, John resumed his recordings, and gathered the leaders. The air was still, and I swatted away a stray mosquito that seemed determined to kill itself in the fire. "So," John began.

"The head count today was good, and our numbers haven't decreased since the last pack of wolves." John paused, waiting for comments.

"Good. Well, once we get the walls up, presumably… In a week or so, we'll launch our first flare." It was our way of getting more people to join the cause, and a bright light usually convinced people that there was hope somewhere.

"Radio?" Bran asked.

"No luck, but someone's taken down the local emergency station." This raised some ears, but John had no more details to spare.

"That, or it ran out of power." Gwen noted. She wasn't exactly optimistic.

Bran continued a new conversation. "With the irrigation Percy set up, all of our crops should be ready to harvest within the next 3 months." Gwen confirmed the fact, and some many tongues watered at the sound of harvest.

"Even better news, I said _all_ crops should be ready in three months. That said, half of them will be ready in less than a month."

"So, what would we expect?"

"Well, expect assloads of salad leaves and radishes soon… Followed by green onions." Bran answered.

"Well… We're still missing a few key ingredients: livestock and oilseeds." Gwen noted.

"We had loads of seeds on the scavenge run. You should check them out." I said. Gwen nodded.

"Ahh… And that's the end of it. Gwen, if you please, I'll give the instructions to our next supply run. Percy, if you wouldn't mind?"

"Always." Despite the runs being somewhat taxing, I had to do what I could until these people learned to fight.

 **-(00)-**

"Again!" I shouted. Lance fired off another magical bolt, scorching the tree and denting the trunk deeply. We'd been practicing our magic control for the past two weeks, myself trying to still master water control. Salt water was the easiest and had stopped taking a toll on me a while back. Freshwater from creeks and streams still drained me, though, and I sought to get rid of that. The sun was still high in the sky as we were practicing. Lance had gained some muscle over these past days. He was doing much better than before in training, now able to stand against a regular trainee, but I still pushed him to his limit now and again.

We had made the small forest clearing from before our usual training spot, mainly because it was far enough away that no one would accidentally stumble upon us practicing magic, but it was close enough in the case of a monster attack. Few clouds dotted the skies above, and with the sun hanging just after noon, the sky was a bright blue, while the surrounding forest was an ever-cascading pallet of green and brown. The stream off to our right had grown from the last three days of rainfall, which was good for me because that meant I had more water to work with.

Lance had cast his fifth magic bolt, and was still standing. Granted, he was panting heavily and looked ready to drop but the fact that he was still standing was what I considered progress. "Alright, take a break. We're going to be heading back to the settlement soon." I told him. He nodded, and let gravity take hold of him. Meanwhile, I was busy beginning practice for my water control.

Just as before, the stream bent to my will with some effort on my part. It was almost like trying to control the River Lethe from before, but it wasn't going to erase my memories if I got wet, nor was it as powerful or resistant. If anything, it was like trying to hang on to an energetic dog, always bucking and trying to break free, but only if you actually let it free.

To concentrate, I closed my eyes and used my powers to 'sense' the river. I had wanted to call this my Water Sense, but the moment I said it out loud to myself I discovered that it lost the ring I thought it had. That, and it sounded about as stupid as it probably was.

The river was easy enough to sense. Large, rapidly flowing, certainly not moving erratically, thank gods. Then came the harder part. My control over water wasn't as great as with fresh water, but I could still manage it. The river buckled and churned under my influence, but I pushed on, willing the water to rise in a sort of curve. The ability I wanted to try out needed for some water to be free, and it was easier to divide a section of the river rather than just rip out a huge chunk that I wouldn't really use. An orb about the size of a bowling ball separated from the river, and floated over towards me. I set the rest of the river back down into its duct, not needing it for now.

Now, I only needed the ball of water for one reason, and that was because I still couldn't separate the "harmful" bacteria in the water away from the water itself. I couldn't even move them with the water. I could sense them in the water and practically feel them crawling through it, but I just couldn't do anything about it. Still I had to try, because the one thing that Chiron told me that's stuck with me for this long was that a power was like a muscle. The more you used it, the easier it became to control.

So I had the water floating there, my power allowing me to sense all the tiny little things that floated in the ball. A kaleidoscope of senses hit me, each feeling telling of a different bacteria in the water. Some were like tiny marshmallows with stringy feet crawling over my arms. Others felt like a rough silk ribbon gliding over my neck, giving me the tingles in the process. Yet still others were like millions of toothpicks prickling all up and down my body (again with the tingles). Overall? I was pretty lucky my senses didn't overload from the millions of creatures that resided in the water.

I could feel them all, swimming around like microscopic fish. Now came the hardest part of all. I put almost all my focus into moving as many of the small creatures to the surface of the ball of water, trying to create tiny currents that would carry them along, but it felt like pushing against a brick wall.

If this succeeded, then it meant a whole other gateway of opportunities. I would be eventually able to drain the water out of certain things… Hopefully not a human person.

I grunted and moved to an easier task: the microscopic creatures that were no bigger than two cells… It came easily enough, but in doing so I had sacrificed a quarter of the water, rendering that part as a habitat for the creatures, which now started… Committing cannibalism?

We walked back to the settlement, and surprise surprise, the wall was still in construction. We actually had less building power than we thought…

Anyways, food was starting to scrape bare bottom. With the collected fuel from all our adventures, the truck lasted a good 2 runs that I escorted, both with plenty of loot. The only thing we missed were livestock, which was pretty fucking impossible. That said, Gwen had switched to some kind of different farming method, one that involved assloads of fields.

Well, the actual main reason our wall wasn't completed was the fact that fences were built for the farms. Long-ass rows of metal and wood that covered a few acres of land… Amazing that we had accomplished so much.

The farm was actually a short walk from the settlement itself, to hopefully prevent the mutants from trampling it. Few of the workers also lived on the farm, preferring isolation from the rest. On the subject of livestock… Horses. Yeah, Jack went missing after the battle.

 **-(00)-**

"You up for your first hunt?" I asked Lance.

"Yep." He said, not popping the 'p'.

The hunt was pretty much a practice run for our powers, mainly used to as a test to see where we were in comparison from before. I had gone on plenty of hunts on my own, mainly under the guise of scouting or patrolling, but I always had Lance stay back because despite looking healthy he sometimes had moments where he would relapse back into a sickly state. It would never last for more than half a day, but I didn't want to take him anywhere in case he relapse in the middle of a hunt. I'd rather not be the last demigod in existence, thank you very much.

For the past two weeks he'd shown no signs of relapsing so I felt it would be time for him to test his mettle. Baptism by fire would be a good analogy.

Both of us had on thick jackets and dark pants as the weather had decided to bring in a cold front today. For a moment I had honestly thought Khione had survived the end and had decided to screw with us. Seriously, because a cold front that drops the temperature from the 80s to the 40s during the end of July was _not_ normal, even by demigod standards. Still, no time like a hunt to get the blood pumping. We had walked through the settlement, passing by plenty of other people wrapping themselves up in whatever they could to fight against this freaky cold. Most had bundled together with other people in large handwoven blankets, courtesy of Jessie and her knitting crew (which you wouldn't think would know how to fight, but then you would be wrong. Nothing is more terrifying in battle than seeing someone take sewing needles and ram them into a mutant's neck). A few managed to find some winter clothes and share them as pseudo-blankets.

The walls were just reaching the final stage of building, which was fantastic seeing as how the mutants had become more active recently. I don't know if it was the cold, or the fact that there were so many people in one place and they couldn't get to us, but they were… agitated. Yeah, agitated. It's like they were compelled to try and attack us now.

Anyway, we'd made it to the armory, where we kept all our scavenged weapons, ammo, vehicles, and whatever body armor we could scrounge. We always had one person stationed there at all times, in case any bandits or cultists decided to drop by. Today one of our veterans, a large bear of a man named Marcus, was running the post. His height reached a staggering 6'7, he had a beard that would make any lumberjack jealous, and had muscles that looked like they could crush a tree trunk. He wore a flannel shirt with a leather jacket to combat the cold. Yet despite his appearance, he was one of the friendliest guys in the settlement, practically a teddy bear.

He leaned on one hand in boredom, but perked up immediately when he saw us coming. "Hey guys!" he greeted in his gravelly voice. "Hey Marcus," I greeted back. "We're here to sign out a weapon for Lance." Lance, upon hearing his name, gave a friendly wave. Marcus nodded and asked, "Right, so ranged then?" I shook my head. "Something that's a bit more personal, if you can." Marcus frowned. "You're taking him on outside with no guns?" Granted, saying the idea out loud did sound ridiculous, but that would have only applied to an _average_ teenager. Lance had particular abilities that gave him a leg up over the others.

"Just trust me." I said. Marcus, seeing that he wasn't going to change my mind, shrugged, sighed, and went to grab a melee weapon. Lance rocked back and forth on his feet slightly, his hands resting in his jacket's pockets. He had chosen a light gray jacket with almost black pants. I myself had gone for a dark blue jacket with black pants because I did not enjoy the cold. Whenever Mom would have us take the trip out to Montauk, whenever it got cold we'd always bundle up and watch movies from the 50s.

"You excited?" I asked him, wondering how he would react on his first hunt. He wasn't as green as the other recruits, but from what he told me he didn't have that much experience in the field. Whether that was real or not remained to be seen, but regardless I'd rather have him ready to go when the time called for it. If I could get Lance to at least be halfway decent with his abilities, we'd have no trouble surviving, and we'd sure as hell have no problem dealing with the mutants.

He shrugged. "I want to say yes, but at the same time I feel… I don't know. It's like I'm seeing this as nothing more than a simple milk run, so to speak. I know I'm stronger because of the training you've given me." I neglected to remind him that every time we trained or sparred he'd end up on the ground, coated in sweat and practically heaving air, but I decided to keep that to myself. "But I feel like there's just more to do here."

Marcus had returned with a weapon. It was an oaken baseball bat that had large razors grated onto the top foot of it. The bat was rather large for Lance's size, mainly going up to my hip to about his stomach, but it would do more than plenty for him. "I tried to get you something with good reach, just so you have a better chance at taking out those things. Good luck to you both." We nodded to Marcus in thanks and made our way to the gate. Along the way, I had Kronos come out as a khopesh.

The 'gate' as it was called was actually just a glorified metal door that had the most guards around it. Until we had our wall up and proper, the gate would be under heavy surveillance round the clock. Gwen was heading security today, having been put on shift while the farmers she usually watched over tended to the crops. She was talking to another guard before she noticed us. She quickly finished speaking to him about whatever they were talking about before she waved us over.

Unlike most of the settlement's residents Gwen was one of the lucky few that wasn't bothered too much by the cold. Her attire consisted of a plain, brown long sleeve shirt, khaki cargo pants, and leather gloves.

"Today's the harvest…" She frowned.

"I know. Start without me, if you like." the man said before jogging off to join the rest of his clique. Gwen sighed in resentment before noticing us. The past few weeks we'd been trying to find good ground, let bygones be bygones, but it was much more difficult with the way Gwen wanted to run things. "Hey Gwen," Lance greeted first, waving politely at her as we approached.

Gwen returned the greeting with a half smile and a small wave. "Hey, kid. Heading out?" "We're going on a small scouting run, just a few miles east of here." I told her, stepping forward so that all her attention was directed at me. Her half smile turned into a full frown. "Scouting run? I wasn't told of this." "Yeah, well I figured I might as well take Lance here and show him how things are done outside the walls." Whatever brownie points I had with Gwen just flew out the window at that point.

"You mean to tell me you're taking a teenager, armed with only a baseball bat, outside the walls, on your own, just to show him how 'things are done?'" Gwen asked, sounding more and more incredulous and more and more pissed with each slight pause. Again, sounded horribly stupid if you looked at Lance as just a teenager. But I saw more than that. I saw a demigod, and having two demigods ready for battle was more than enough. I nodded. "Yes."

So in hindsight I realize I should have been more delicate with my wording, because no sooner did the word leave my mouth Gwen was fuming red and practically belching steam from her nose. A part of me thought it was funny to see Gwen, our leading scientist and agricultural guru, getting pissed.

"Well, if you're done with your moral objections, I'm leaving. Lance is perfectly capable of handling whatever's outside." Lance followed me.

 **-(00)-**

"Soo…" We haven't really talked much as siblings, you know." I awkwardly mentioned.

"Well, sorry. It's just… After Nyx, I feel, silent. I'm used to the silence, I remember the empty feeling of no light and absolutely nothing, pure darkness, but not the magical kind. Like, there was _nothing_ in the place I usually sat in."

"I'm sorry." I said, knowing fully well that I didn't quite feel his pain or understand it.

"Well, I would love to get to know you, _bro_."

I chuckled. "There's still the hunt, dude. Save your one-liners for later."

The boombox took a moment to set up. The thing still had some juice left, and I considered using a musical instrument later to replace the machine.

" _Bitch imma slap yo ass"_

Lance sniggered and readied his bat. In reality, I would have preferred him to use Riptide, but training with a crutch was the best way to get started, just like the Knights of old, who brandished heavy chunks of metal as a sword to train their strength. And that I didn't want it to be _too_ easy. Riptide easily killed the things by poking them, not to mention Kronos, which was far worse.

I was always worried that eventually a swarm of mutants would show up to the settlement, but I killed all of them anyways, so…

Lance sidestepped a lunge of grim jaws, and blocked a weak swipe from one wolf. I stepped in and killed its pack, deciding to evaluate Lance on combating strays. After all my time fighting them, the mutants seemed to pick up new tricks. Growing more armour, recovering quicker from their lunges… it was worrying.

Lance quickly batted at its legs several times, preventing the black-furred beast from getting up. This was quickly followed by several quick and hard swipes to the neck, reducing the monster's neck into paste.

The roar of a bear mutant shook our attention. The bear ran towards me, but Lance stepped in front of the animal while I took care of its flank and friends.

Time to up the scales… A bear and a wolf!

Lance recovered his breath and disoriented the wolf with several swipes that mostly did little damage to the quicker wolf. A small 'sching' was heard as Lance drew Riptide and bisected the monster. The case of shards still rested on his back, and the bear swiped at Lance.

He jumped back quick enough, but he was still scratched on his left arm. The beast swiped and stepped forward again, but Lance ducked under it and stepped into its guard. Realizing his mistake, Lance raised to block the snapping large jaws. Worried enough to try and step in, I went forward, but paused when Lance lost his initial panic and fired a bolt directly into the bear's stomach.

The monster roared in pain, and its stomach seemed to glow gold with energy for a second. Its lower body seemed to want to build up with energy, but Lance swung his bat anyways, cracking the small white mask that adorned its face. The second strike, however, was not as lucky. The bat was caught between the white claws, and with a terrible groan, the bat twisted and snapped.

Lance clicked his tongue in anger and drew Riptide, killing the thing. The music was already off at this point, but I knew there were more making their way towards us. "Did I do good?" Lance asked, slightly out of breath.

"You're doing better than any other trainee… At monster fighting, of course. But don't worry, demigods are just supposed to be superior at killing monsters." I reassured.

Lance nodded. Over the few months we had travelled, Lance rarely showed his personality, preferring isolation and rather little communication. This was tricky as I was not used to… His type. I had never met anyone so… Quiet.

I was stirred from my thoughts by the stirring of bushes. Many monsters, even two birds, revealed themselves, and I nodded at Lance.

"Well, practice fighting with your bolts. That'll help." Lance nodded, and smirked.

We fought for minutes, which was edging pretty close to infinity in a normal fight. Lance used Riptide to slash apart monsters and work on his evasion and counterattack, while I preferred to work on my reflexes [thanks, birds!] and water attacks.

I threw a spear of tense water towards a bear, stunning it. For a normal human, they would have suffered heavy brain damage, but it seemed the beasts were incredibly resilient. In my whole experience as a fighter, I had never seen a bullet make a torso exit wound… Except that time we found a working machine gun, but that thing's barrel stopped working after a few shots.

I stepped in and carved my way past several monsters. When the last one was all that remained, I stuffed my hand down its wound and concentrated on the blood.

It froze.

No, it didn't stay still and break into ice shards, it… Fell apart at where I had made several previous wounds with my large knife, becoming a weird pile of frozen arteries and dissolving flesh. Lance frowned and pinched his nose.

 **A:N/**

 **Goodsir: ah, I will remember to make more character development soon. Other than that, let's do a power comparison.**

 **Lance: is a 14-year-old trainee with almost one month of experience in sword, and has the body of a strong yet malnourished demigod that is slightly weaker than the average demigod due to his magic body. He fought a half-alpha Ursa with an extremely low quality weapon, probably worse than a pitchfork.**

 **Meanwhile, hunter trainees of his age in modern day RWBY equipped with good melee weapons would take the same time, maybe longer, yet Lance did this in under a minute without aura or extensive Grimm studies, albeit with an OP sword. Well, a normal sword would have done the same thing. Imagine a demigod, already on par with hunters of similar age due to their natural reflexes, and IF they had aura…**

 **It would be fucking beautiful.**

 **Now, let's hear some ideas from the reviewers! We have all the shit we need here, but we would like having a bit more. Please review with: Weapon, minor OC, and ability suggestion. Now, imma hand this to P3pp3r, but remember to review!**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: I'm going to start off with a serious note and profusely thank Goodsir for having wrapped up this chapter so well. It was like he read my frickin' mind! Back to my normalcy: We're pumping out more good shit every chance we get! We've even set up or own lore page and sorry board to keep ourselves in check (thank you Goodsir!)! Do be sure to leave a review, tell us what you think, and we'll see you all in the next chapter. Until next time: DEUCE!**

 **Percyofhellhounds: well, since you've taken so much time with reviewing, I would like to hear some ideas from you...**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:**

 **Goodsir:**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Right! So you know the plan!**

 **Lance: What plan? All you did was hand me this crayon drawing of an explosion and shouted if I knew the plan?**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Then you know the plan!**

 **Lance: How did I get stuck with you?**

 **Reviews:**

 **Iiznelomviing: Yeah, we'll use him. Well, I (Goodsir) have thought about it, and Udigenski sounds like a Russian (Atlesian) name. Second, yes. You will eventually get to see them interact with the canon characters. (Mr.P3pp3r:) Oh, yeah! We're definitely going to use him. Since he does now sound Russian in nature, we'll have to get him a Russian last name that relates to a color in some way (I'm thinking snow). Also, since you've only given the personality for him, and not really a description, that leaves options open for us to experime- I mean,** _ **discuss**_ **the finer details of his physical description. Though, if you have something in mind, please do not feel shy about PM'ing either myself or Goodsir about any details you want to set in stone about him (like, for instance, if he be man or Faunus.)**

 **Percy:**

The aftermath of the battle wasn't as messy as it usually was. Normally we'd have some sort of bloody mess to cleanup, usually when one of our guys was injured, but instead it was just myself and Lance, and a bunch of rapidly evaporating bodies. I myself wasn't scratched much, just a rogue nick here and there. Lance's arm was bleeding slightly, but it wasn't gushing blood like they showed in the movies. His clothes were the real story of the fight: cut, marred, and surprisingly charred, they bore the brunt of the damage. Still, he was in one piece, and he wasn't panting like from before. All that training really had paid off.

Lance held what remained of Riptide loosely in his hand, his left arm shaking a little, probably from the adrenaline. I'd been on my fair share of cuts and bruises before, so something like what Lance had would have been nothing more than a light itch to me. However, I guessed Lance wasn't used to being scratched up, and while he did have a small amount of combat experience, the vast majority of that experience was mainly from our sparring sessions.

Taking Kronos, I carefully sliced off a part of my jacket's hood and used it as a makeshift bandage. It would do him good until we got back. Ever since the end of the world, my water sensing abilities had become quite limited. I could sense water when it was nearby, and I could still tell where I was in latitude and longitude, but any water for me to sense had to be at least fifty yards near me. After that it was like looking at the edge of a sonar, and my ability to tell where I was took longer than before. Before the fall, I could tell where I was the moment I wanted to. Now I had to focus to get a general reading of where I was.

Yet when I noticed Lance, his powers didn't seem to suffer as much, if at all. If anything, they seemed to be doing just fine. Now I honestly couldn't tell if it was because of him being a Type B and having heaps more magical energy than myself to draw from, or if it was because he was a Type B son of Poseidon - something that has never happened before in recorded history of demigods, or if it had something to do with being down in that den of monsters. To this day I still had no clue as to why the monsters decided to keep him alive and plant those veins on him. The only thing I was mostly sure about was that they were pumping the same stuff they came from into him. Again, mostly sure about this. Those could have been feeding tubes for all I knew.

Back to the present, I had taken Riptide and returned it to its case, making sure the blade sat comfortably within the foamy interior. A cold gust brushed through, bringing with it the scent of dead pine and mud. A few stray leaves swirled in the beginnings of a dust devil, and the trees rustled lightly with the wind. It was calm. It reminded me of one of the few days I had managed to take off with Annabeth. We'd always go to Central Park as often as we could, either going by pegasus, taxi, or driving - something that Annabeth had always been better at. Our favorite spot had been under this big oak tree, one that was supposedly around when the first New York settlers came here. I doubted it was even a stump left now, after everything that's happened.

"Right, let's get back and get that wound treated." I said, taking one last cursory glance around the area to make sure we were in the clear. No monsters were around right now, but those things had a tendency to show up at the worst possible times. Lance nodded and together we set off, retracing our path through the alive-ish forest, using what little signs we could to find our way. It wasn't too difficult to find the direct way back, but another trait the monsters now shared with the monsters I used to fight was that they had excellent senses.

Sneaking up on them was difficult… reason why we could hide behind cars was because of their oily scent that concealed us.

After three hours of carefully trekking our way back around the larger mutant bears, dodging past a few of the mutant wolves, and cutting through a few strays, we'd finally made it back to the gate. It seemed that in our absence they managed to get the gate actually looking and working like a gate, manned by three armed sentries and everything. There were two of my trainees Jeffrey and Bridget - fraternal twins with blonde hair, green eyes, and enough freckles to put Nancy Bobofit in third place, each holding what looked to be our semi-automatic rifles, flanking one of our older veterans, Mathias, a retired military veteran that was well in his sixties, but looked like he was maybe, _maybe_ pushing forty.

He saw us approaching and turned to someone inside. "Open the gate!" the old guy shouted.

Gwen stormed out, and I swear, I could see her eyes flashing in the darkness. "Oh god! He's injured! What the fuck, Percy?"

I grunted. "He was out training."

Gwen stared at me, unimpressed. "Fine, ugh, from now on, how about you _don't_ take the kid out to train, and why don't you start help secure the front and train our people?"

"Well, he's doing just fine. Kid's a prodigy!" I beamed.

"Percy, you can't just take random teenagers to battle the force of darkness! He didn't even have a gun!"

"Well, he killed them, alright. But the bat broke, though."

"Well, at least give him a real weapon!"

"I gave him a broken sword! It did fine, right Lance?" I looked at him.

"No duh. I killed a lot of them, Gwen, and I know training is risky, but Percy can step in whenever there's trouble." Lance assured.

John can and put a hand on Gwen's shoulder. "Percy, Bran and I trust you to make this work… Don't fail us. Gwen?"

The woman huffed and left. Ever since Jessie retired from our little council, John was the peace broker between everyone. It wasn't exactly a good thing considering that John wasn't as experienced as Jessie and we'd end up in a fight even though he was busy trying to break it up in the first place.

Lance looked confused at Gwen's behavior. It probably never occurred to him that Gwen wasn't exactly too fond of having teenagers - not just Lance - training to fight the monsters, and that she was even less than thrilled that I took him out, on our own, no ranged weapons or backup, and we came back scratched. I still saw it as a victory, though. Demigods were lucky to come back with _just_ scratches. Rick never mentioned the demigods that came back missing body parts, nor did he talk about how sometimes monsters would mail back what remained of the demigods they had killed.

Lance leaned in next to me and whispered, "Why's she so angry?" "Because she was worried about you." I whispered back. The unbelieving look on Lance's face told me he never saw Gwen that way. "She was? I thought she knew everyone would have to fight. It's not like monsters pick and choose their prey." That remark, I'll admit, stunned me a little. I wasn't figuring Lance to say that, considering he'd been kept alive by the monsters for some odd reason, though I wasn't going to be generous and chalk it up to the graces of their hearts (if they even _had_ hearts). Still, back before the end Lance had a point. Monsters never really chose to let demigods go, not unless they were certain they would kill more later.

We headed back to my lodging. I couldn't call it a house because it was more like a large shack with plenty of openings in the roof, but it was not a shack in the sense that it was decent and livable.

Lance sat on the remains of a couch we managed to scrape together, while I went for the fridge for a quick bite to eat. The fridge wasn't in working order, mainly just used as a cupboard for now, but once we got the settlement up and running, we'd be able to focus on the finer things like personal refrigerators. Eh, at least I had some of those cool-packs.

My eyes fell on a rather scrumptious looking can of beef. Another can, this one being chili, caught my attention as well. "Lance," I called from the dormant fridge. "Yeah?" he called back. "Do you want beef or chili?" There was a pause before his reply came. "Chili, if you don't mind." Shrugging, I grabbed the can and tossed it over my shoulder. Hearing Lance sound surprised momentarily before going for the can brought a small satisfactory smile to my face. He was still attentive, even with a wound. Along with my can of beef, I grabbed a bottle of saltwater. The others thought I was nuts about bottling saltwater, until I told them my mom once showed me how to remedy basic illnesses, like colds and sore throats, with boiled saltwater. Really, I bottled it in case of emergencies. Not only that, but i usually healed better with something closer to seawater.

Stuffing the bottle in my right pocket, I made sure to grab two carved spoons before joining Lance on the couch. I handed him a spoon, used Kronos to 'pop' the cans open, and together we ate in silence. Had we done so before the fall, we'd have sacrificed a portion to the gods to keep them happy, but they're dead, so we didn't.

Our cans were empty before long. I had Lance hand me his spoon and can, and I set them on a makeshift counter. I'd wash them later with my water powers, and I went back to the couch. We sat there in silence, our ADHD having been satiated for the time being having gone on a little training trip. There was one thing the mutants had over the Greek monsters, and that was sheer numbers. Normally a demigod would come across one or two monsters in an area, or a small pack of four, maybe five tops.

However, these things were absolutely everywhere. The werewolf-looking mutants were in packs averaging ten, the bears around six to seven, and the birds flocked in with about fifteen. The boars were a mix, as we'd find them alone, or in a group of six even. Odd, considering they were usually the ones to get angriest whenever we killed one of their number. Kill or be killed, I guess.

"Perseus, do you think we'll make it?" Lance asked me, suddenly breaking the silence. The question caught me off guard, so it took me a few seconds to respond. "Uh, I think so, yeah. Gwen seems pretty capable at running the farms, John is pretty charismatic so I think he can keep the people in high spirits." Lance shook his head. "No, I mean humanity, as a whole. Do you think humanity will survive? Day to day we go out, search for supplies, and defend the perimeter from those monsters, and yet it feels like we're getting nowhere." His shoulders sagged as he leaned on the sofa's armrest. "It just feels like we're not doing much."

His words rolled through my mind as I tried to think of something to say to try and bring his spirits up. He seemed so happy when we got back, so this was rather surprising. "Lance," I began, trying to choose my words very carefully. "While it doesn't feel like it, we are making it. Humanity is making it. Just last week we had fifteen people join us because of the rumors we spread around."

"Yeah, and eleven of them died on mission," Lance pointed out somberly. Ouch, wasn't expecting that. "That may be, but we still push on because that's what we do as humans." I honestly didn't believe it, but I was cynical and usually didn't believe in a lot of things now. Still, if I could keep Lance going then there was a hope that he would carry on if I died. Hey, I knew I wasn't immortal. I just knew I was good enough, for now.

"Humanity is stubborn, Lance, and that's why even in the bleakest times we keep fighting.: My gods I really needed to sound more convincing, and apparently Lance though so, too, seeing as how he just deflated right there. Great, now instead of helping I just made it worse. Well, I had one way of 'helping' that always seemed to work. "Alright, Lance. Come on." I said as I pulled myself from the couch.

Lance turned to me with a confused expression. "What? Where?" The confusion on his face made me want to smile, because I knew he would feel fear in a moment. "We're going to train." Immediately Lance blanched. I couldn't help it. I laughed at his miserable look.

"Well… um… at least that's what… humans thought when they were first building society?"

 **-(00)-**

 **Lance**

I once again found myself on the receiving end of a pain so great I was sure my old Myrmidon instructor was laughing himself to a second death in Hades. Percy was relentless this time. I was sure of it. Before he would always take it easy, let me catch my breath and essentially let me try to devise plans on how to fight him, but now he was a non-stop torrent of pain and misery. His blows were like strikes from Hephaestus' hammer, his speed like Hermes on his winged sand- dear gods here he comes again!

I had just enough time to raise Riptide's broken remains to deflect a blow from Kronos in khopesh form, sliding the broken sword along the golden blade until it reached the curve. Once there I twisted as to pull Riptide away, because in a pure strength comparison, I was outclassed immeasurably. What's even worse was that he wasn't showing any signs of fatigue. I knew my brother had to have had some great amount of stamina, but all the stories I heard about him were exaggerated, but I was beginning to wonder if they were only slightly so.

"Come on, Lance. Focus." I heard my brother command. Easy for him to say. He didn't have a hurricane of strikes to dodge. _Gods above, if this keeps up I'll be too sore to even blink tomorrow_ , I thought to myself. It wasn't much of an exaggeration. Percy was striking hard, sometimes even causing sparks to dance off our blades. The Kronos training was mostly to improve my tactical thinking and stamina in-fight, and… gods, I did not want to be scratched by that thing.

My arms felt as if they were lead, my eyes were forced to stay open, lest I fall unconscious right there. In desperation, as Percy swung Kronos towards me, I decided to do something crazy and dove right for his feet. A few hairs were knicked off the top of my head, but I was in the clear. Percy didn't expect this, if the look of complete and utter surprise was anything to go by. The few seconds I had were precious, and I dare not waste them. As soon as I hit the ground, I launched myself at Percy's legs, shouldering them and bringing him down.

This was the farthest I had ever gotten into beating Percy. Before it had always been a dance of sorts, where Percy would beat me mercilessly, give me a moment's respite, and then continue with thrashing me. It had become a routine, if you will. Now, I was ad libbing. Once Percy hit the ground I scrambled to place myself on top of him. I held Riptide weakly and tried to point it at him as menacingly as an exhausted teen could. "Do you yield?" I croaked. Percy eyed Riptide with curiosity, my breathing the only sound in our little sparring arena. No onlookers were around, no one was there to see how I had managed to pin my brother.

I was about to say something else when Percy smirked, and I felt a stunning pain in my ankles. I rolled off, groaning as I clutched several bruises that hopefully were not bleeding… "Not bad! We'll go into more on how to deal with those situations tomorrow."

"Newcomer!" Someone sounded the bell.

Percy rushed to the front gates, and I accidentally tripped someone carrying a basket of salad leaves… Damnit! "Sorry!" I helped the guy up, thankfully only losing a small handful of the produce.

 **Percy**

The roar of a dying bike rang in my ears, and I was immediately brought back to Ares. Oh god, not these types again. John and several others raised their rifles, which was followed by a short crash and a shriek. "Whoawhoawhoawhoawhoawhoa guys, peace. Peace? I do peace, guys. Don't shoot, please."

As the motorcycle was rested on the green, a brown haired man came into view. There was a pair of circular sunglasses that fitted snugly above his nose, and long but well-kept hair accompanied by barely shaven beard. His clothes weren't too degraded, looking more like well-worn biker clothes than anything. A black leather jacket and dark pants distinguished him as a biker, and the added fact that he wore boots.

"State your name and business." Stan ordered.

"Name's Adam Winchester. How do you do?" He even offered a hand out, but no one took it. Well, one did. Surprisingly, it was Lance. He took the biker's hand and shook it. "Hey, sorry about the guns. But we've had some problems with people in the past." I could tell that even though Lance kept a friendly smile, it was a sour note for him to talk about the people that were killed on missions.

The man, Adam, nodded before responding. "Hey, it's cool. I understand. Those crazy priests out there aren't exactly the friendliest to outsiders. Anyway, you know where I can find the leader of this place? I heard that there was a settlement doing well out west, and boy am I glad I found you guys. I've been riding for two days straight and could really use some rest."

Everyone still kept their guns trained on him when I stepped forward. I'm glad they remembered their training, otherwise I'd have to beat it into them all over again. "And just what exactly is it that you could offer us?" I asked. Adam smiled and told me, "Well, I do know how to kill those monster things out there rather well. Managed to kill two bears on my own. I'd have taken a trophy, but the bastards evaporated before I could get a momento."

"That's… a good thing to know. Glad to have you on board. We'll get you a place to stay, and a bit of work to do. You dig?"

"I dig. Oh, I definitely dig." He smiled.

I sort of smiled, I guess. Always good to have newcomers. We showed Adam to the guest quarters, where he would stay until we found an occupation for him. I was thinking he might be good as a scout or security, but Bran thought he might make an excellent instructor. Gwen agreed (mainly because she and Bran had the hots for each other, but we didn't say anything), so we decided to put it to a vote, having John, Jessie, Lance, myself, Gwen, Bran, Stan, and Adam show up. Ultimately, Adam joined the security force, which is what he voted for, as did myself, Lance, John, Stan, and Jessie.

As I left Adam with Bran on how security worked, Lance and I headed back to my place. Lance crashed on the couch while I headed for my room. It wasn't much, just a small dresser, a single bed, and a metal box to store anything I thought would be interesting. The sun had just begun to set, but after training with Lance, and actually being caught off guard, sleep felt more and more like a good idea. The moment my head touched the mattress, I was asleep.

I knew it was a dream the moment I saw the shark float right by my head. A hammerhead drifted off into the dark waters around me, leaving me alone at the doorstep to the one place I thought I'd never see again. Dad's palace. It was in shambles, just like everything else in this world. The once great towers were not torn and broken, the walls having lost their luster and began to crumble, even the gleaming doors I once admired were now bent and misshapen. It was cold, and even though I wasn't wet I was very aware of the water gliding across my skin.

Suddenly, a current swept me inside. I was tossed and twisted in the current, going ass over teakettle as my dream once again forcefully took me wherever I was 'needed.' Honestly I never understood that about demigod dreams. Why was it that we were either forcefully moved to our destination or the dream blurred by in some sort of wormhole looking deal? It never made sense to me why we just couldn't find ourselves in the area we needed to be in the first place, with the 'outside' area coming last so we knew where it was after the big reveal.

Back to the dream at hand, the current yanked me through the silent halls, passed skeletons of long dead mermaids, and into the throne room. Dad's throne, having once been the center of attention here, was not marred and crumbled. I felt my throat squeeze in as I beheld the sight. I knew everyone was gone, but I never really faced it before, not even Annabeth…

My dream was on a schedule apparently, seeing as how from the throne room I was once again dragged against my will, down halls that were grimy and unstable, by rooms that were filled with the skeletons of the dead, and right into the palace's forges. Large, round skeletons of Cyclopes now lost littered the floor. Even underwater I could feel a tear roll down my cheek. Tyson...Gods, Tyson. Of all the people I had cared for, Tyson was the most innocent of them all. He'd be so happy to meet knew people, and eat peanut butter. Gods, the amount of peanut butter that kid could scarf down. It was a sight to both behold in awe and fear.

The furnace at the center began to glow, slowly turning red and boiling the water around it. As it grew hotter, the area began to brighten as the forges once again regained life. Fires danced underwater, licking at their stony edges as if savoring the moment. All at once, the fires lept from their homes, twirling and dancing through the air as they combined into a large ribbon of flame. It snaked through the water, sliding across the floor and moving skeletons out of its path. It slid right up to the largest container in the room. A neat label in Ancient Greek read, "Weapons."

The flame snake lunged at me, as if overtaken by some predatory need to hunt. Just before it reached me, the dream ended. I shot up from my bed, panting - not sweating this time, thankfully. From my living room came a squeaking sound, Lance showing up at my door a few seconds later. "You had a dream, too?" he asked. I nodded. "What was yours about?" he asked.

I took a few moments to gather my thoughts, going over the dream before telling him, "I was at Dad's palace. There are still weapons there."

 **-(00)-**

 **Omake** :

"Percy, I want you to meet Preston Garvey. He's head of the security force in charge of home defense, and acts as our eyes and ears to the outside world, as well as our mediator to the other settlements." John explained as he introduced me to the new guy. The man wasn't overbearing or intimidating like you'd expect a head of security to be. He was more friendly looking, even had a smile on him at all times when he wasn't somber. "Good to meet you, Preston," I greeted, offering my hand for a shake. Preston accepted the greeting, shaking firmly as he replied, "A pleasure, General." I noticed he placed some slight emphasis on the word 'General,' which brought me to cast a glance to John, who just so happened to be looking away with a shit-eating grin on his face. Still, I wasn't going to argue, and the title did sounded nice, so I let it slide.

"I'll let you guys do your thing," John said before conveniently moving off to somewhere that wasn't there. I turned to Preston. "Alright Garvey, so what do you have for me.?" Preston pulled out a map of the area, pointing to a large red X. "I've just received word that a nearby settlement needs our help." I nodded. "Okay, I'll get it done."

 **-(00)-**

Night had fallen by the time I got back. My clothes were in tatters, I had scratches and cuts all over from the monsters, and I was damned tired. When he said a settlement needed help, I wasn't expecting a small army of Grimm to have overrun the place. Still, I got it done, and managed to secure an alliance with another settlement. My shack looked like a gods-sent haven, and I was shuffling towards like a zombie. I didn't even make it past the couch inside, I just threw myself and fell asleep.

Come morning, I awoke feeling sore from yesterday. I had a feeling more stuff like this would arise, so I decided that if I was going on these little 'trips' then so was Lance. The kid needed practice, after all. It wasn't long before I found Garvey, the man leaning over a table and studying the map of the surrounding region. "Hey Preston," I greeted, a small amount of dread in my voice. "Another settlement needs our help," was his immediate reply. Of course there was, these monsters weren't going to let up just because we asked them to. "I'll mark it on your map." Preston informed, indeed taking my map and circling the area in red crayon. I sighed, and trudged off to find Lance. He seemed eager to join me on a mission, and readily accepted. Oh joy.

 **-(00)-**

The sun just reached noon by the time we got back. It was worse than the first settlement! Not only were there monsters, but this time a band of cultists decided to show up and just absolutely ruin our day. So not only were Lance and I scratched up, we had close calls with about 500 bullets, as well. I had wanted to go to sleep and hope this was a bad dream, but… "Percy, another settlement needs our help. I'll mark it on your map." I couldn't even summon the strength to argue. Preston just marked my map and shuffled us out.

 **-(00)-**

Night had fallen by the time Lance and I returned. We had burn marks, our shirts were only a few straps away from just crumbling, and I was feeling rather pissy. We had just entered the gates, my nerves frayed from today's dealing of monsters, cultists, and for some reason other settlers! I just wanted to go to sleep. "Percy, another settlement needs our help! I'll mark it on your map." Preston informed, going for my map once again. However, this time I wasn't having it. I don't know if it was the fact that I felt he was trying to kill us, or that I had dealt with a literal legion of monsters today, but I. was. Pissed. I grabbed Preston by the arm, grabbed him by his shirt with my other hand, and threw him - yes _threw_ him - over the metal wall. No sooner did I do so did I feel a great weight roll off my shoulders. It was like a blissful peace had settled.

I let Lance stay in my cabin for the night, letting him take the couch while I took my bed. I slept fitfully and like a dead man for eight hours straight. By the time I woke up, the sun was already high in the sky. I, however, was feeling rather lazy today and felt I deserved a break, so I stayed in bed. I was just about to close my eyes when I heard, "Another settlement needs our help."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

 **A/N: Ayyy, booyyyyyysssss. IT's ME, GOODSIR!**

 **Goodsir: Just wanted to thank percyofhellhounds here, good ideas so far. We'll sort of implement them into the plot.**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: And while we're doing that (and by we I mean Lance and Goodsire) I shall be gathering butter for a later chapter. And applesauce. Can't forget the applesauce. Anyways, thank you all so much for reading our story this far! A big thank you to all of the readers that were there from the beginning as well as those that favorite and follow this story. It's people like you that inspire us to keep writing (and totally not Lance threatening me with a stick of dynamite every three days). So until next time: DEUCE!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:**

 **Goodsir:**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: BAH SUWENYA! MONENI MI MAMA!**

 **Lance: That was completely butchered. Not even close. Also, where the hell have you been?**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Believe it or not, I've actually been busy with college! That's right! I'm going to be in the same building as toxic-level chemicals! Do you know what that means?**

 **Lance: I'm sure it would be enough for you to be put on the FBI watchlist.**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: It means I can make fizzy pop!**

 **Lance: Right, well when you're done ranting, we've got a show to do.**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: ONWARDS! TO GLORY!**

 **Reviews:**

 **Sgt. M00re: Don't you worry your pretty little head. We'll get to the RWBY timeline soon enough. That's just a couple of arcs away, though. But I promise you we will get there eventually!**

 **Iiznelomviing: In the words of Satan to Leo: "You asked for it!"**

 **Percy**

Dawn was fast approaching by the time Lance and I had our supplies ready to go. Each of us had a small handcrafted backpack courtesy of Jessie, filled with two days worth of spare food. Kronos rested on my wrist while Lance toted Riptide's case. If my dream had any weight, we might be able to not only get some better weapons, but repair Riptide as well. That way Lance could have a proper sword.

Both of us had dressed light that day, as we needed as much maneuverability as possible underwater. Even when I moved underwater in the past, my clothes still moved and weighed just as if they were actually wet underwater, even though they never got wet unless I wanted them to.

Around this time there were very few people moving out and about, mainly just the guards we had stationed for patrol inside the wall and the three guards on top of the gate at all times. The air was cool this morning, and the morning dew was still visible. None of the other de facto leaders were up up at this time. Gwen was usually the first to rise about an hour after dawn, which gave us a sizeable window to use.

The three guards at the gate only gave us passing nods as we headed out. I could feel the anxiety scratching along my veins. I was tense, not because we had to cut through heavily-infested monster lands, but because we were going to Dad's palace. As soon as I had that dream, the location of Dad's palace had just suddenly been something I knew. No matter what direction I was facing, I could always tell where it was. Funny thing, the palace wasn't in the same area as before. It had moved closer to us, but still, miles of swimming would have to be done.

I walked calmly through the growing woods, killing or avoiding anything mutant related. Lance got a bit of practice, but we would have to preserve our stamina for the walk.

 **-(00)-**

The walk took us more than a couple hours, probably almost six or seven. The sun was already past noon, I knew that much, and was on its slow descent towards dusk. I stepped off some of my gear and ate at the ruined beach, setting a light campfire for comfort. Lance was standing in the waves, looking out at the ocean with a strange look. I couldn't tell if it was excitement, anger, or something else, entirely, but he looked ready, that was for sure.

"Lance," I said, breaking his concentration on the ocean. "Come on, get something to eat. We've still got a long ways to go." He nodded, and soon we were both finishing off our third canned meal. Once we had finished, I used the nearby saltwater to put out the fire. We were going to be swimming for miles, but it would only take about an hour if we used our manipulation of water. Now would also be the time for Lance to prove he was my brother, or at least half brother.

We both stepped into the water. I could feel my father's domain surging with power. Some of that power surged into me, and I could feel a similar drain, albeit much lesser compared to mine, coming from Lance. "Percy, I may need your help underwater. I've never really been able to practice water control, and I'd prefer not to fall behind at the start."

Well, at least I could sense he was absorbing the water's power, but it felt like how I had done so the very first time. On the plus side, I had another half brother, and on top of that having _two_ sons of Poseidon meant we had two powerhouses to use against the monsters. Lance had a long way to come before he would be on my level, but if he grew strong enough I think he might be able to surpass even Medea as a spellcaster. Good gods, if that happened then the monsters would _really_ be in trouble.

Seeing as how this mission was top priority, I would take over for most of the journey, hopefully until we got to Dad's palace. The water easily bent to my will, almost like it was completely willing. I wanted to make sure Lance had at least the basics of water manipulation to work with, so I tested to see if he could breathe underwater. Slowly, and with as much concentration as I could spare, I created a mask of water, and placed it on Lance's head. He wasn't surprised, so thankfully he wasn't thrashing about, else that would have been a whole host of problems right there. He hadn't moved for about five minutes, and when he did he gave me a thumbs up.

The water mask dropped and Lance stood there, looking none worse for wear. He was breathing normal, he looked calm, I think he was ready. "Are you ready to go?" I asked. All he gave me was a nod. It was enough. I closed my eyes in concentration and the water surged around us, gripping us both by the waist and pulling us towards Dad's palace. We shot through the water at speeds meant to kill a man in seconds, but we were both fine. I could feel Lance's power as we sped underwater. In comparison to mine, it was about half, which was way more than I expected, but that also meant with enough training he'd be strong enough to take on plenty of those mutants on his own.

For an eternity we sped through the darkness, the sun having set above water, but already we were getting further away the surface, slowly reaching levels that light couldn't. It was Dad's way of making sure no mortals could ever find him, but being beyond the point their technology could ever reach. Only sons of Poseidon could reach it, and even then we could just barely hold together. Being down here, in the darker depths, surrounded in an ocean without a master… I could feel raw power coursing along the currents, flowing like a hurricane around us. It lacked control, direction, and was as free as it could ever be.

I suddenly felt a choking sensation rise up my nostrils… The water pressure was too deep! I thrashed around in pain, trying to find a light in the darkness that trapped my vision. Lance was nowhere to be seen, probably since I was nearly blind. In this growing chasm of fear of drowning, I felt myself painfully change, muscles tearing apart and tissue reforming to build stronger ones.

It would generate a hearty and long debate about the whether pain of all your muscles destroying to rebuild in nanoseconds was more painful than dipping the soul in its acid of Styx, but I was in no position to try and remember either of them. My mind and nerves eventually failed to register any alarms… It had died out.

When I came about, Lance was looking over me in his mask, concerned. There was no light, but a faint glow covered him, illuminating the area around us. I felt a lot more… fluid. Almost faster, perhaps even tougher. I'd never gone this deep before! I knew water pressure was really high in the depths of the ocean, but _this_? What could possibly trigger this? I shook my head. "What happened? Are you okay?" He bubbled.

"M'fine. I'm… just as confused as you are. What happened?"

"You started thrashing around and holding your own neck! I was worried you were choking yourself, but I didn't know what to do!" He yelled.

"Let's… go. We can discuss this later. Lance huffed and swam lower with a weak pulse of power.

I don't know when, but I saw just fine.

After about an hour of travel (thank you Kronos) we were finally there. Dad's palace. It looked just as bad as my dream had shown me. Broken walls, skeletons everywhere, I was pretty sure that when the gods fell the merfolk here just upped and died here, too. It hurt to think about it, but not as much as I thought it would. If I knew anything about my dreams, it was that they were always true, which meant that there would be weapons waiting for us in the armory. As we neared, I looked over to Lance to see how he was doing. Even though we were underwater, I was sure he was crying. There was just no way he could have that sad a look and _not_ shed tears. I didn't want him looking like this, but he would have to face reality at some point. There were no other demigods, no more mythology. It was just us. We were the last remnants of a time now dead.

The halls were silent, even as we passed through them with the ocean current. The last time I was here, Kronos had sent Oceanus after Dad and this place had been alive with activity. It wasn't until I came back now that I realized just how big this place was. The hallways towered over us, arching in coral finishes. The walls that had once been living murals were now dulled and gray, griming with the lack of control. Dad's palace was now a graveyard, one that no human would ever know about.

"Oh shit," I said. "Come take a look at this!"

"What?"

"It's a royal guard's staff."

"What's so special about it? I mean, it's just another weapon, right?"

I smirked. "Poseidon had the best smiths available." I picked up the slightly blue object, weighing it before running my hands over it. The weapon extended into a thin spear, of the finest quality and make. I pressed a small trigger on the side, and the blades separated into a trident. A small, almost invisible lever rested beside the grip, and a quick pull of it activated the blade at the end.

"It's… Awesome!"

"I want you to have it." I shifted it to its original form and tossed it to Lance.

"Really?" My brother had an almost happy expression, and let me tell ya, nothing is better than making your family happy.

Thirty minutes passed before we finally reached the armory. Plenty of times Lance and I had to double back, following our non-existent footsteps back into areas we knew and tried again. Once we did find the armory, Lance and I had to shove open a large metal door that resisted us the entire time. We had to use everything we had to shove that damned door just open enough for us to slip through. I was the first inside, because I knew that inside was a Cyclopes grave. As Lance began to worm his way through the doorway, I noticed that the door had been blocked by several skeletons of long dead Cyclopes. Everywhere I looked I saw them. Their large round forms easily taking over the entire floorspace, and their one empty socket seemed to peer into me more than any monster ever did.

I shook my head, forcing myself from these thoughts. We were on a mission, we could mourn the dead later. Lance had frozen stock still, his face frozen in complete and utter shock. I had been desensitized to this kind of horror through years of fighting monsters. Rick never told you guy about all the times I walked into a monster den with a mess everywhere, did he? Thought not, but that doesn't matter. Point is, I was used to this, but Lance... Damn, this kid was just getting all sorts of trauma. I had to physically shake him from his stupor, forcing myself not to flinch when he looked at me with dead eyes. I pointed at one of the intact weapons lockers off in the corner, and he understood.

Together we swam over to the locker. A padlock was all that stood between us and those sweet, sweet weapons, and best of all was that it was slightly rusted. I had Kronos in my hands as a war scythe, ready to cut the lock off, when Lance grabbed the padlock before I could slice it. I was about to ask him what he was thinking, when a magical sigil, a white circle with points like teeth on its outer edge, sharp lines cutting through the inner circle. It spun in his hand for a second before becoming a glow on his hand. The water around the lock boiled before the lock snapped and fell to pieces. I gave him an incredulous look seeing only his dead eyes set on the locker. Guess I'll have to get him to explain after we were back home. I had to give the door a hard yank to open it, but it gave way soon enough. Inside were semi-pristine weapons: swords, knives, spears, even a couple of guns. We immediately set to work, Lance holding the weapons together while I tied them up with Kronos in its kusarigama form. And holy fuck, was that a serious arsenal. Even if this was a really bad one, there was a truck load of weapons.

With the weapons secured, we began to make our way out of the room. I had to shift some of the Cyclopes' skeletons away from the door to make it large enough to move the bundle through, but we got out soon enough. Before we left, I led us to the throne room. It only felt right to say goodbye before we left, and to says thanks. Dad's throne had been bent and now stood lopsided and rusted. Lance stayed by the doorway while I swam up to the throne, tracing my fingers over the armrests.

"Hey, Dad…" I began. I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, everything I had been through going by so fast I was still recovering a little. Before everything went to Hell, I had been more focused on getting through New Rome University with high enough grades to get in pretty good places in the mortal world. Now, I was more focused on surviving and helping humanity grow. "We've uh… we've been good, so far. I found out I had a brother, though I don't really know him, so… Yeah. Oh! And we've recently started a settlement, got plenty of vegetables coming soon. What else… umm, we've been... Training? Yeah, training. Lance and I have been keeping ourselves in shape. Gotta fight the monsters one way or another right?" This was getting awkward now, and only because I was making it awkward. Time to cut loose.

Talking to your dead friends and family was a far-cry from reality, being a super awkward and strange thing to do. I mean, if you really felt like it, it might help, but I was not really in the mood. We had the weapons, so that meant we were done here. Lance seemed to brighten up a bit when we made our way back to the beach.

It wasn't as good as I'd thought it to be, but with the strange changes to my body, I couldn't argue. We discussed the strange shit that was happening, but eventually concluded that it was the disappearance of godly things that took away much of the world. We left the beach, with the surprisingly light load. I mean, I was carrying enough weaponry to supply an entire platoon!

"Let's check the stock." Lance suggested. I grunted and laid out all the gear.

We counted:

-18 Swords

-8 Spears

-3 Tridents

-5 Various harpoon guns

-7 Amphibious assault rifles, unloaded.

-2 Underwater rifles, unloaded.

-1800 rounds, or 6 cases of amphibious rifle ammo

-2 cases of flechettes

-8 large stock-less and grip-less SMGs, probably for Cyclopes

-12 amphibious pistols

-Some assorted gear

-2 crates, or 2000 rounds of pistol ammo

Holy fuck… I immediately set to work, throwing out the tridents and harpoon guns. Unless everyone decided they wanted to make their own Atlantis, we weren't going to need anything underwater-ish. _Why not reforge them?_ Well, trying to heat up godly metal was next to the realm of impossible, unless you were a god yourself. Celestial metals were so fucking heat resistant, they might as well be completely heat-proof.

I then disposed of the underwater rifles and their flechettes, same principles involved. Me? Oh, I didn't need that. Most of the stuff was made of some godly element mined underwater, mixed with… Probably copper, lead, or steel. I was no expert on forging, but I did know the bare basics. We loaded up the guns and ammo into a little wooden crate Lance brought, and the swords were in Kronos' clutch. Lance carried a few spears on his back and the swords, along with the two crates of pistol ammo.

Meanwhile, I carried the rest. Honestly I thought it would have been heavier, but either Poseidon had this stuff to be lightweight - which seems a little far-fetched given that underwater things _floated_ , but that's just me - or training went better than I expected. Either way, I didn't care, I just knew I could move those things without hinderance. Wow, there's a word I never thought I'd use. Hinderance. Really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it. Hin-der-ance. Hmm.

Anyway, the trip was anything but eventful. I'm not sure if you guys could detect the sarcasm there, but it actually was eventful. It seemed that every ten steps we'd come across another monster. Granted it was always a low number, from about one to three, but still… It's like they knew we were there.

The trip before took around six to seven hours, which would have put us in the settlement around midnight or so, but by the time we got back, dawn was fast approaching. Already I could see the outline of home being covered by the rising sun.

Still, it was good to be back. We had our weapons, I found out how strong I'd become, and Lance even got some practice in. It showed, too. Before he could cast a couple of spells before needing to take a break, but now he was just scraping the teens, having done eleven magical bolts before he stopped.

As we got closer to home, I began to notice a few odd details. For starters, I smelt smoke. It was a generally agreed upon rule that we never try to start a fire until we could install a better wall and defenses. Another odd thing I noticed was that there was a line of smoke rising from the settlement. Again, I thought they had done some celebrating, though of what I wasn't sure.

It wasn't until we were nearly at the gate that I noticed that smoke wasn't from celebration.

It was from an attack.

The wall was nearly right before us before I noticed just how badly damaged it was. Large, gaping holes dotted the metal sheets we had in place. There were no sentries placed on the ramparts. I could hear people groaning from within. "No. No no no no no no No NO!" I began to scream, my speed rising with the sound of my voice as I broke the distance between myself and my home.

The metal gate we had in place was ajar, which left it swinging open with the wind. Inside was a battle scar. Dead bodies were everywhere, even with a patrol going about to collect the dead. That's how I was noticed first. "Hey. Hey! Percy's back!" the youngest of the undertakers shouted.

Others began to shout the same thing, and before long I was surrounded with so many people, most thankful that I had come back, but a few were… pissed doesn't even begin to describe how they felt.

"Where. The. Hell. Were you." Gwen growled. I could tell she wanted to slap me, and probably would if I said anything. Thankfully, though, my saving grace actually came from Lance. "Gwen, we found a stockpile of weapons. Look!" he explained, holding up the weapons for all to see. Everyone stared dumbstruck at the amount of melee weapons we had come back with, along with the crates of ammo and the assorted gear. Most of the pissed-off people came to my side, but there were still a few that held their ground, namely Gwen. "You couldn't have told us what you were planning?!" she cried. Gods above, she was pissed.

"Did you know, that while you were gone we were attacked by a group _way_ stronger than the cultists? Yeah, they came in with weapons only the government could have access to. We fought, but they overwhelmed us in an instant. Our numbers are down to just over forty now."

I couldn't say anything, and Lance was already looking downtrodden. A few people tried to cheer him up, thanking him for the weapons, but he was in his own world at the moment. If I didn't have the experience of losing my _entire fucking species_ then I probably would have joined Lance in abject despair, but I wasn't going to, because unlike Lance, I've gotten used to being one of the last demigods. No, I wasn't feeling sadness, not entirely anyway.

I was pissed. I was pissed more than when I found out Annabeth had been kidnapped. I was pissed off more than when Tantalus and Mr. D harassed the camp. I was even more pissed off than when I found out Gabe Ugliano - may he rot in Hades - had hit my mother. Yeah, I wanted blood, and I was going to have it.

I set down everything I was carrying, grabbed the case with Riptide, grabbed a nearby semi-auto rifle, and looked Gwen right in the eye when I asked her, in a very calm voice, "Where did they go?"

I guess no one was used to me being so serious. Gwen actually took a step back in surprise. "What?" she asked. I'm guessing she didn't expect me to react so soon, but to hell with that. We were attacked. The people I cared about, the ones I called _family_ were killed. I was going to pay them back, twice-fold in blood.

Lance was right next to me, a blank, cold look in his eyes as he managed to scrounge up an assault rifle and two pistols. I knew he was a pretty bad aim when it came to guns in general. Everytime he practiced, he shook like a leaf and jumped whenever a shot went off. You could imagine it became a widely mutual idea to keep him away from any sort of gun, even the BB guns. Especially the BB guns. Now, he looked like he was ready to go in a heartbeat.

"I said, which way did they go?" Gwen blinked a couple of times, apparently still caught off guard but damn it, I needed to know which way they went.

"Percy, you can't be serious! The last time you left, only fifty of us made it out alive! If you leave again, we'll be slaughtered." This time the 'voice of reason' was from John. Poor bastard looked like a ghost, but honestly I was glad to see he was alive. I looked around, seeing everyone looking at me, pleading me to stay. There were so many less people now. People I recognized that had been with us since the beginning, as well as those that came from hearing the rumors, each looked disheveled and in shock. I really wanted to go out and kill these bastards that attacked. I mean _really_ stick it to them… but I couldn't leave them. Not again.

"Fine," I said. I lowered my rifle, as did Lance, and we went to join the others in burying the dead. We had a graveyard, just outside the settlement, with handmade crosses for gravemarkers, but never before did I see it get so huge. We made it a practice to have stones with the deceased's name carve into it. There were so many I recognized. Stan, Sebastian, Mike. Gods, I saw a grave for Marcus. Lance noticed it, too, and decided to leave a sword on top of the grave. It wasn't much more than a simple gesture, but for a demigod it was the ultimate sign of respect. Rick probably never told you guys this either, but we did have a grave site for the fallen demigods, complete with named grave markers and everything. Whenever a demigod fell, if someone placed a weapon on top of the grave it meant they had the upmost respect for that demigod and their skills. Sort of a warrior's way of acknowledging how great they actually were. I could understand Lance's actions. Marcus had trained Lance along with Bran when I wasn't able to.

Still, he was handling their deaths a lot better than I was. Seeing so many graves, with so many familiar names… it hit me hard. Gods above, it was like the entire weight of the fucking ocean had just been dropped on me. I could feel my stomach trying to jump out my mouth, but I swallowed it down. I was about to head back when my eye caught a particular grave. It was adorned in flowers, and I could tell many people were around this one seeing as how so many footprints led to this grave in particular.

I knelt down to move the flowers, so I could see who was there.

Jessie.

My blood ran cold right then and there. My eyes couldn't believe what they were seeing, and my brain was scrambling to figure out how this was possible. Jessie. Are. You. Fucking. Serious?! Jessie. Out of everyone to die… Gods, what the actual fuck!

"She was one of the first to go," I heard Bran say behind me as he walked over. I couldn't take my eyes off the grave, unable to comprehend that fact. It was like this was some fucking back dream. A nightmare or some shit like that. I felt a hand rest itself on my right shoulder. "She went out to see what they wanted, or if they needed something… and they just… cut her down. I'm sorry Percy. She was like a grandmother to us all." Yeah, no shit. Jessie was the town grandmother. You had a problem that you needed some advice on? Jessie was there to help. Needed to vent off some steam without any judgement? Jessie listened. Gods, the lengths that woman went to to try and help as many as she could. She was the voice of reason for us all. The fact that she was dead…

"I'll make them pay," I growled out. My hands curled into fists so tightly I was sure I was going to draw blood. My entire body was shaking with rage. The only reason I didn't go looking for those asshats that attacked us was because there were still so many people that needed help here. That, and because Jessie would have wanted me to stay. The hand left my shoulder. "Percy… when you find them… find one named Gregory. He was the one that killed Jessie. Make sure he bleeds."

I heard Bran's footsteps as he left, the cold morning grass crunching under his feet. The dawn's air cold against me skin. Gregory… Now I had a name, which meant I had a target. Now I just needed to know who these assholes were so I could track them down.

After we finished burying the dead, Lance and I took up alternating shifts to patrol the walls. Between myself, Lance, Adam, of all people, and Bran, we had a sentry on the wall round the clock, even into the night. So many homes were now vacant. It hurt to think about them. One night, as Adam and I had pulled a dual shift, we began to chat. "So, think we'll find the bastards that did this?" he asked me as we both gazed out into the night, practically daring anything to come charging. With the holes in the wall, monster attacks became more frequent, but we didn't have to worry as much as I thought we did. Lance had those covered. He didn't use magic, but boy did his hands do some work.

I shrugged. "If they attack again, they'll be sorry this time around." I could tell Adam had looked over at me. "Sorry for sounding like a skeptic, but what exactly is it that you can do that over four hundred people couldn't?" I said nothing, simply showing him Kronos. Adam hadn't been with us long enough to see it in action, as he was always one of the night watchers. He eyed its bracelet before asking, "How's a bracelet going to stop them? They had shit I was sure only military bases had." To answer his question, I grabbed hold of Kronos and willed it to become its original form.

The scythe elongated in my hand, the metal sliding over my skin as it grew in size. Thirty seconds later I had a full-fledged weapon of the Titans in my hand. Needless to say, Adam was stunned. "What the- How'd you manage to do that?" Again I shrugged, "It's been able to do this for as long as I've had it. It never dulls, and anyone that isn't me or Lance that tries to grab this blade bursts into flames."

Adam looked at me as if I fell from the sky, which did happen to me once. "You're shitting me." "He's being completely serious," Lance said as he joined us on the wall. "He actually figured this out when a cultist had tried to grab it, and _POOF!_ He was a pile of ashes." Lance even had his hands pretend to burst open as he said 'poof.' Adam seemed at a loss for words. "I gotta tell ya, that was something I wasn't expecting. Then again, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, you know, with the End of Days, and all. But hey, at least this means there is a God, right?"

Lance and I looked at each other before we turned back to Adam. "Uh, I guess?" was my reply. Honestly, like Chiron told me when I first got to camp, we didn't deal with the metaphysical. Trying to figure that out made my brain hurt, anyways, so I stuck with what I knew, and that was killing monsters.

Lance shrugged. "Honestly I never thought about it, I've just been going about things on a day to day basis." He crossed his arms and leaned against the railing. "If there is a God, then I hope He's watching us with a smile on his face. I think we could use some good graces right about now."

Adam reached into his shirt and pulled out a necklace. I had to really look at it to see that at the end it had a Star of David on it. The six-pointed star of Judaism. That was another thing we demigods learned about: other religions. Mainly we studied their monsters in case we ever came across them, but I was glad to just be dealing with Greek monsters. That little adventure with those Egyptian magicians really weirded me out.

He mumbled a quick prayer, gave the amulet a light kiss, then placed it back into his shirt. Lance shrugged and went back to his rounds. Every night he tried to volunteer for night watch along the wall while the few engineers we had worked tirelessly to repair the wall. It was a slow going process that would take months, perhaps even years, to complete, but we wouldn't stop, not until everyone was safe.

 **A/N:**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Hoo doggeh that was a good one! Now we're picking up and moving along.**

 **Lance: I still can't believe you're taking longer and longer to work on this. Goodsir's did a helluva lot more work that you did in the last chapter.**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: And I keep telling you that damned tuna kept stealing my charging cable down in Texas, so zip it!**

 **Goodsir: I'm not Jewish, so please, correct us if we got anything wrong. This isn't meant to offend any race, culture, or religion in any way. Anyways, P3pp3r did a lot of work. I have no doubt this story would be dying without him!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:**

 **Goodsir:**

 **Mr.P3pp3r:**

Gwen sighed, and almost brushed her hair back, but remembered that everyone essentially had short hair now. "We were sending our… fifth flare or so.

"So, what exactly happened?" i asked, looking blankly into the mountains.

Everyone was a bit anxious without you to oversee the entire thing, but we did it anyway. There weren't nearly enough people with special expertise; just lucky scavengers. We were hoping for hardened survivors who could add to our skillset."

I chuckled. "You mean those doomsday preppers types?"

"Exactly. Well, I really doubted they would wander this far out, but everyone was pretty confident anyways. And that's when _they_ came."

"Who?"

"The military. At least, it looked that way. They spotted our flares a few days ago, and sent a greeting party, probably to recruit us."

I nodded. "Oh…"

"Well, you've seen what John had to say, and none of us were happy to join."

"Yeah, none of us, Gwen, this would have been prevented if we just joined them! But _you_ people had to-" Some guy stormed out.

"Oh, so YOU want to join them now. Go, be my fucking guest, run after them and kiss their asses. Get the fuck out of my camp!" She kicked the guy out, and slammed a backpack into his face.

"Y-you'll regret this one day! You can't do this!" He yelled. Stan stood up and spat on him, while John looked away from the scene.

"As I was saying, we declined their offer, and they… they charged in a few minutes later. They had helicopters, Percy. Helicopters!" I could see the light trauma begin to form in all their minds, and I agreed, a helicopter raining down machine-gun fire was a terrifying visage.

"Then we train. We get stronger. We prepare defenses, and use our new weapons." I said. Gwen didn't look too uplifted. "Percy, I'm worried about if they come back a second time. We barely got by after the first encounter, and we numbered close to two hundred. How are we supposed to fight the military when we've only got a handful of people left?"

She was right. Our numbers were no more than a drop compared to what we had before. The military, if it even _was_ the military, had superior firepower, tactics, and numbers. They more than likely had everything to counter a normal bunch of people. But see, that's the thing. We didn't just have normal people. We had not one, but two demigods, both being sons of Poseidon. One of us was strong enough. Not only that, but with the gods gone… I don't know. I've felt stronger. Like I've had a weighted vest on for so long and just now took it off. My reflexes were faster, my strength was definitely improving, and my manipulation of water was getting stronger, and I was able to control more at a time.

We didn't need an army. We had two demigods that the world didn't know about. "Gwen, leave handling them to me." My voice was like steel, surprising even me. I could tell Gwen was looking at me, but as to what face she had on was up in the air. Honestly, I didn't care. No one fucks with my family and gets away from it. If Nemesis were still alive, she'd be shoving me along this path with enough enthusiasm to make even a drunken Mr. D. to throw up.

Someone else was coming to join us. I heard the footsteps before Gwen did. "Hey guys," Bran said, shuffling up next to Gwen. I'm pretty sure it was because they were completely head-over-heels for each other, but they would say it was because of this damned cold front, because they, and I quote Bran, "weren't _together_ together." Everyone else, however, knew. We also knew that they had taken a shared residency. You know… _private_ moments and all that.

Seeing as how Gwen wasn't arguing with me taking over retaliation, I figured there was nothing left for us to talk about. Gwen and I still weren't great friends, but we were acquainted enough to not want to kill each other. That was a plus, at least.

Down in the main square, as we took to calling the big open area between the houses and the gate, now freshly repaired with thanks to the engineers pulling triple overtime to repair it and the wall, a light frost had settled on the ground. Only about ten or so people were out. From the looks of things, they were the morning security shift. It had been six days since the attack, and the air was still heavy with mourning. Families were cut short and broken, and barely anyone was willing to walk around without security on the clock.

Lance had taken to pulling security detail as often as he could without dropping. I could see him, patrolling the far eastern section along with Stan. Stan carried with him a hunting rifle with a scope, while Lance looked like he had a pistol and one of the swords from our haul from Dad's palace.

John was busy doing rounds throughout the now abandoned parts of our settlement. He had volunteered along with three others to gather supplies from the now empty houses. We had a unanimous vote to leave anything that wasn't necessary, so taking personal affects was a big no-no. From their scavenge we'd manage to secure ninety percent of our canned goods, seventy-five percent of our spare clothing materials, and every single weapon we had loaned out for personal defence, along with every single round of ammunition with them. The fresh food was abandoned too, since we had no way of storing anything.

By the time the scavenge was over, John had asked to patrol the dead portions, as the few remaining people we had refused to move into the houses there. So there he was, walking by silent houses of dead people. I had taken to staying in the white tent we used for meetings or emergencies to try and plan a counter-strike against the military. Granted, now that I think about it in depth, the more I realize I sound like a Wolverine from Red Dawn… or a deranged terrorist. Whatever the case, they attacked us first, and there was not a snowball's chance in Hell I would let them get away with it.

I first began by having engineers draw up a map of the base, then have our scouts (what remained of them, anyway) add in details of the surrounding land. Once that was finished, I had to swallow my pride and emotions and asked everyone about the attack. Where did the come from? How many of them were there? How did they attack? How long did each attack last? Things like that. Surprisingly, everyone gave an answer, even though I probably forced them back through some traumatizing nightmares. By noon, I had a map of arrows, each a different color to indicate which direction they came from, which direction they left, where they attacked, etc. On the table I had a simple journal with details about the attack. The one thing I kept coming back to was that they had helicopters, but no tanks.

Now, I'm not going to say I want to be like these assholes, but if I had to think like them, tanks would have been a great asset. They were huge, tough, and could have easily forced a surrender without having to fire a single shot. Most people wouldn't have had any real world experience with tanks, so seeing one point its barrel at you would have probably made you comply with whatever demands the driver had. Maybe… Yeah, they probably didn't think it was necessary.

Another thing I was coming back to was how quick and thorough they were. It's like they knew where we were in the first place, and had the layout beforehand. As far as I knew, we only threw out one person in the entirety of this settlement's lifespan, and that was after the attack.

If they were the military, then maybe they could have gotten the layout from satellite imaging. I remembered once how Annabeth had discussed having a camp satellite to have an edge over the monsters, but Mr. D. was pretty quick to shoot her idea down. If they did have a satellite, then maybe we could use it… if we managed to take over the base they were using in the first place. Which brought me to the biggest hole in my plans: where were they stationed at?

I had studied the maps for hours, hoping that some miracle would occur and I would have a brilliant stroke of luck, like Annabeth whenever she went after a college-level math problem.

Scouting turned out to be the final solution. If we didn't know where they were, we had to find them, not _look_ for them on a map. The river was a good place to start, as people usually settled there for the water, as we had.

I waved a farewell to the settlers and dove in, enjoying cool water and the occasional fish. I sunk to the bottom, faintly remembering that strange thing last time I was in a body of water. A few hundred thousand large rocks covered the bottom of the clear river, its condition being better than any i'd ever been in. As I started to move around, I rested my sore shoulders, letting the rocks massage me.

I closed my eyes and stopped.

Where was I?

The water was now clear, I could see all around me. The built up sediment had cleared around me in a giant bubble. The occasional fish swam up, gave a greeting, and swam off downstream. Up above, I could see a few other animals stop to take a drink and move off. After a few minutes passed by I saw one of the wolf mutants walk up to the river.

Good gods it was even uglier up close. I mean, I know I fought these things hand to hand often, but they died so quick I didn't have time to really look at them. Up close I could see this particular mutant had some crusted bloodstains on its coat. For the longest minute we had a staring contest. I wasn't sure if it could see me, and I sure as hell didn't want it to. My heart pounded in my chest as I waited. I wasn't scared. No, instead… I was excited. Being so close to one, easily in my reach, it was exhilarating.

After a long, silent minute passed, it began to lap water just like a dog. As it drank from the river, I could see its tongue was just as black (perhaps purple-ish) as its coat. I could see the beginnings of a skull face, slowly maturing year-by-year. I calmed down completely and grabbed its head, enveloping the foreign object in water. It coughed and bubbled and whimpered, but I held the fucker down until it no longer moved, only twitching slightly. The black mist thankfully did not pollute the river, but instead evaporated into nothing.

I hummed a light tune to myself as I continued to wait. For some reason, I can't imagine why, the crab from the Little Mermaid had wormed its way into my head and started to sing Under The Sea. Yeah, I know. Just hearing that song's name plays it. Sorry, not sorry.

Anyway, after three renditions of that accursed song (I loved it as a kid, but it's not exactly the thing to listen to on a mission), I finally had my target, unless of course there was another group that just so happened to have military looking gear, standard military assault rifles, and a Humvee painted camouflage forest green.

I do realize that I made a small deal of basically everything important, hence why no one came to me to hear… the two prophecies. Hell, I don't even remember the "great" one!

Three of them began to fill large metal containers (the ones that look like gasoline containers, but I guess these were drinking from… unless these guys wanted the Kool-Aid that badly), while one of them walked off to take a whiz. I could tell he was taking a whiz because the bastard had stopped just in front of a tree and stood there with his hands going towards his hoohah. _The hell are they doing here? Exposition?_

While I sat there, I began to ruminate on how I would track these guys without being seen. They were literally taking water, so I could track them that way, but it only worked for so long. That, and usually trying to find water ends up with me finding rather large puddles after rainfalls.

Still, I had one idea that might work. The sludge of the river was something I could sense to, and it felt just how it looked to me when I sensed it and water: murky, slimy, and pretty much liquid mud.

I knew that if I tried to get close or if I tried to maneuver the murk into their water cans they would notice and either A) Shoot the shit out of me or B) get the cans out of water before I could do anything else to track it. So, I had to improvise. There were some fish nearby that were swimming blissfully. _Hey guys!_ _Mind creating a diversion a little upstream for a few seconds?_ I asked them. The fish were all too happy to do so, going nuts and breaking the water's surface almost next to the guy taking a piss.

It worked for a three seconds, seeing as how the four guys turned their attention to the swarm of fish long enough for me to plant enough sludge in each of the containers to track but not be noticed.

Once that was done, I thanked the fish, and waited until the guys left. Judging by how they picked up their pace in the last two minutes they were there, I was willing to guess some mutants were sighted. _Better to eliminate them both. Two birds with one stone!_

Swirls of dust were kicked up as their vehicle hurled off, silence taking over the air above soon after. I waited one minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. Nothing came to take a drink. Still, these mutants were smart. Well, at least in Zerg rush terms. I swam to the surface, but instead of breaking out like I normally would, I was silent and slow, not even causing a ripple as I surfaced. There were two mutants, both wolves, resting in the clearing.

I seriously was not in the mood to deal with these things, so unfortunately for the two mutants, the river burst to life, a miniature tidal wave that grabbed them both and pulled the under. It wasn't long before they were nothing more than dissolving clouds of black mist.

My senses were heightened as I used my powers to search for the sludge-infested water. It was about two mile- wait. Two miles? I could sense that far? Freaking sweet! Anyway, the water was about two miles east of the river, and were slowly moving. I'm willing to guess they were going through a rough patch, but If they were at their base, then I'd accept that too.

Still, I wasn't about to take any chances. I may have been stronger than the average demigod, but I wasn't immortal. Had I been immortal I would have gone in full swing, but I wasn't so I wouldn't. I made sure to memorize where I was upstream before heading back to base. The sun was starting its descent by the time I got back. Kronos politely informed me of the clocks hitting 5:41 UTC, which seemed about right. Gwen was the first to find me.

"What did you find?" she asked. That was it. No 'Hello!' or 'You're back!' Just, "What did you find?" Guess she was still sore about the whole me and Lance having been gone thing.

"I found some of them getting water from the river about a half mile upstream. They bugged out soon for some reason. I'm going to take Lance and see if we can't spot some kind of base of operations or whatever."

She frowned. "Lance? I know he's a good fighter, but is he really the best choice for a scouting mission?" I was surprised Gwen, of all people to admit that Lance was good.

However, that didn't mean I would always meet some resistance in my plans. It was obvious she didn't like me, nor did she forgive me for what happened earlier. I could live with that. She would sometimes insult me or vote against me when the gain was so little to her. I could also live with that.

"Absolutely not." See?

"Percy, the last time you and Lance went off on a mission, we were completely and utterly devastated." I looked at her sideways, kind of insulting her for shooting down a plan literally everyone else on the council would have agreed upon.

"And you have a better idea?" I asked.

"Yes, we send in people actually experienced in navigation, scouting, and spotting! Percy, this isn't a simple hit-and-run! We need plans, and I don't doubt your ability to create a good one, but by remaining here you give everyone a better chance of survival-"

"What do you mean by _experienced_? I thought all of you were just better runners…" I'll admit, that wasn't the best of speechcraft, but I had definitely struck a heavy nerve.

Gwen thankfully remained the ever patient person she was, and left.

The next few silent hours were spent on extra rations for the planned scouts, some basic conditioning, and a quick spar with Lance. There was no reason for Gwen to sideline me like that. I could easily find these goons, recon their base, and make it back in one piece. Sending out other people will only leave us with fewer people. Sending one person with a guarantee over a group with only a chance just didn't sit right with me.

 _CLANG!_

The clashing of swords brought me out of my thoughts. Reactively I had blocked a strike from Lance, which wasn't hard given his current condition. He was soaked in sweat, panting, and swaying a little on his feet.

I was most intent on working with his practical mutant fighting skills, as that usually let a demigod develop their own styles and strategies. It wasn't about using the right technique, more like knowing the situation and making the best of it using basic skills. Advanced maneuvers had such a… narrow field of use, it would be a complete waste of time to work on them.

I do realize celestial Bronze fighting was a lot more flexible, as they were somehow enchanted to never chip, unlike most melee weapons when parrying and blocking. Hopefully dad's armoury shared the same traits.

"Alright, Lance. That's enough for today." He nodded, and let gravity take hold as he fell to the ground. I remembered the first time we sparred. Gods, he looked ready to pass out then and there. Now, Lance was still very much awake, just damned tired. He'd make a good demigod, yet.

Lance wasn't going anywhere, and since he wasn't on the verge of passing out, I decided to head out for a little stroll. Well, anyone who saw me would think I was going for a stroll. I actually had a particular destination in mind. I casually walked through the main square of our relocated "camp", relaxing my posture and poise as I let the crisp air cool me off. In all honesty, these frequent cold fronts no longer bothered nor surprised me. It was pretty much assumed that at this point any mythologically related creatures or people - aside from myself and Lance - were most likely dead.

I had rounded the bend that led from our usual little square in which everyone now stayed near, entering the so-called 'Dead Zone' which sounded completely cliche as it didn't have any dead in it, it just wasn't bustling with people anymore. Still, Lance took to calling it that, and it just kind of stuck with everyone else. The houses we built here showed much more damage than the houses near the gate, which was odd considering I would have expected the most damage on those houses by the gates. Bullet holes, scorch marks, and large gashes were on every house. If a warzone could have been fit into a small suburb, then that was it. Blood spots had rusted onto the walls, giving it a Dead Zone vibe. I was beginning to understand why Lance had started to call it the Dead Zone.

Damn, now _I'm_ saying it like that's its official title. Oh well.

Yeah, we moved back after a couple o' days. Some might have thought the decision foolish, but honestly, we were sure (after a few days) that they weren't coming back to check for survivors.

Anywho, I strolled through, not even bothering to give most of the houses a single glance. They weren't why I was here. You see, I figured that eventually we'd be attacked. I came up with that scenario because of how many times we came across those cult bastards. If they kept attacking us, then I figured someone else would get emboldened and attack too, maybe even with a larger force.

So during the first stage of the construction of the wall, I had a select few engineers create basic escape tunnels that were hidden enough to not be found unless someone _really_ wanted to find them, and led out about a decent distance south of the settlement.

I found the hatch easy enough. It was an unassuming metal sheet, just like the other hundreds that made up the wall. However, unlike the ones on the wall, this one had only one bolt in it, and could slide to the side if enough grease was used, and it was on the ground right next to the wall. I had… I think nine of these installed, each leading winding different directions, but eventually leading to the same place, by clearing out some vegetation.

Some of it had rusted a little because of the freaky weather we had been getting, which made it a tad more difficult to move, but once again my trip under the sea proved to be more useful than I imagined. Normally I would have a little trouble moving it without the rust. Now I was moving it like it was slathered in butter. Not the greatest analogy, but I'm not very good at those in the first place.

The sheet gave way to reveal a pitch black tunnel, the dim shape of a support beam a few feet from the edge of the hole. There wasn't much room to maneuver, barely just enough for me to crawl through. I had to wiggle and finagle (yes, it's a word, and yes I know what it means.) my way into the tunnel. I'm pretty sure I did the worm a couple of times, and at one point I debated if I should dislocate my shoulder to move and relocate it in the tunnel. It wouldn't have been the first time I had to reset one of my own limbs. You ever train with a pissed off Clarisse? Yeah, Rick played her strength down in those books. Her spear didn't just shock, and it certainly didn't break easy. I mean, come on. It was a demigod's spear, not a sharp twig.

Once inside, I managed to wiggle onto my back and close the hatch. Once that was done, I began to crawl. The tunnel was narrow, the ceiling scraped my back every so often, and I bumped into a support beam more than once, but I kept going. I had the map of these tunnels memorized by heart, so I knew where I was going. As I crawled further, I felt small rocks dig into my hands, scraping me and cutting me. I ignored them and moved on. Further and further I crawled, breathing slowly as the muggy air down in the tunnel wasn't exactly the most pleasant thing. My eyes felt droopy, my arms protested against me, and I'm pretty sure the knees in my pants were scraped away at this point. My body ached all over. Gods, what I wouldn't give to have Hazel here. She'd bend and twist these tunnels to fit everyone and give everyone room to stand.

I placed my hand to crawl down when it slipped into the dirt. It was like mud, and reminded me of the time Gaea had pulled me into the ground during the Giant War. Yeah, fun times that.

I twisted and pulled trying to free my arm, not wanting to be stuck in these tunnels any longer than I had to, but the ground refused to give up. I put my other hand on the ground to steady myself, only for it to sink as well. Fan-fucking-tastic.

So I lay there, my arms literally in the ground, spurting curses in both English and Greek, pulling with everything I had to try and free myself.

I had pulled again, only to immediately stop. My body began to twist and contort and I felt a huge, dull pain stab through me like an electric current. My vision, whatever it had been before in this no-light tunnel, darkened to the point that I couldn't even see _anything_ in front of me. I did everything I could to free myself, only to find the pain become even stronger. My muscles tightened to the point I thought they were going to pop. My body pulled itself closer and closer into the dirt, even though my arms were the only things _inside_ the ground.

 _This is how I die_ , went the sad little voice at the back of my head. I normally ignored that voice, but it had wormed to the very front of my brain and began to take over my thoughts. I, Percy Jackson, slayer of Titans and Giants, Bane of Gaea, Atlas' Tricker, Slayer of the Nemean Lion, would be beaten by _dirt_.

…

Oh HELL NO!

All at once my body surged with energy… I twisted to my left, and felt the dirt easily give way and my right arm shot free. I did the same for my left arm, and soon found myself with a LOT more space to move around with. But something was wrong…

I bent my knees and pushed myself up, feeling the earth shift and groan in response. The giant mass nearly collapsed on me, but somehow I held it together. Something was still wrong…

A batch of dirt fell into my face, and then my eyes. I yelled and tried to claw it out, but I felt nothing there…

That was when I noticed it.

You ever have those pains when you were a kid? The kind that you get for no reason? That's what this felt like. However, the pain was much worse than growing your bones, and came in the form of dirt in my fucking eyes!

My eyes were held tight as I tried to remove it, but it was like there was no dirt in the first place. All I felt was eye-watering (literally) pain.

I was blind.

There was no light, only the tears. I cried and stumbled, falling on my right arm. Under normal circumstances, I would have probably broken it (falling onto a sharp ass piece of rock and yourself), but for whatever reason, I wasn't harmed. Not that I would have cared much anyway since I was just _blinded_.

It didn't feel like godly aura. No… it didn't feel like any aura, really. There was no aura, and there was no soul, but only _**Gaea**_ , and my body.

And I understood.

Gaea's knowledge was spread wide and far across her body, and every immortal, every mortal, every archetype that dared pass her gave her a piece of themselves.

Poseidon.

The _thing_ I experienced was no soul work; it was only a work of the body responding to great water pressures that I had never dared pass into because of my fear of drowning. It was an open secret: Any son of Poseidon that stepped further than four kilometres into the depths would be gifted with a body to survive such environment. Lance was an exception, you see. Godly magic worked in mysterious ways, being able to act as a perfect environment suit.

The knowledge was gone at once, and I was left with little white vibrations within my senses. Little blips, like dirt rolling around. I took a step and "saw" a clatter of things bounce around and eventually settle. Like I would do with water, I stretched my senses further, with the _intent_ to find. I didn't want to know, but instead I now had the intent to do so.

My brain briefly short-circuited at the sensory overload, but I reduced the vision to only in front of me. I crashed forward, breaking the dirt and holding it in place. I had no clue to where all this power was coming from, because Gaea was a little bitch.

Still, with this new 'sight' I went to work, traveling through the corridors three times faster than before. I could run, the ceiling and floor bending and reshaping itself as I ran. It was like I was dealing with water, only I had to 'push' a little harder for control.

What should have taken me about a few more unbearable minutes of crawling only took no more than a minute. Seriously, crawling was a tedious task! I barely squeezed my way through the exit, but I remembered that I could "push" the dirt. Gods, I was an idiot… I brushed the dirt off of me, since this seemed quite different from my… liquidkinesis? Was there a word for mostly-water,-but-some-other-things-as-well,-but-not-as-efficient-control?

With absolutely no idea how to control this "thing", I extended my senses, much like on the ocean, beyond my eyes. Sensory overload was a main issue, but I tried to cope with by occasionally doing a 360 check.

"Ow." I slammed into a tree, but this… underwater thing protected me.

What would that be, then? An ability for enhanced survivability at the seafloor? Aquatic… creature? No. Aquatic being. Yeah, that struck pretty well. Reminds me of a comic somehow, but I haven't read a book for… I dunno, at least a year. There weren't too many Greek translations floating around. Speaking of Greek, since that was based on demigod dialect, it was much easier for me to learn.

I decided to take a short break, and sat down against a tree. While doing so, I practiced my newfound senses. I found it much easier to find water and pockets of earth now, with this new "energy source". It didn't feel like anything I'd seen before, but from my observations, it only served fuel to the… Geokinesis. I think that was the word for it. It didn't protect me, didn't make me stronger, it was just _there_.

I found little packed blips of water and strange contractions in the earth an hour's walk from here, so I assumed that was camp. I shifted the power "left" of the camp, and moved. As it got blurrier and blurrier, my senses converged on a rapidly moving blip. It felt… different. I could smell it in the air, almost touch it with my skin.

Oil.

Gasoline, to be precise. And pretty high quality, the godly nature of the power reminded me. With both abilities having the ability to sense it, these… things were pretty easy to find. Soon, my little "map" had underground specs of crude oil on it… well, not like it was going to be very useful. We couldn't refine it anyway. The little car sped out of my reach, and the feeling of the slimy substance faded. I tried my best to navigate, but I had a hard time concentrating on two tasks at once. There was something along the lines of a mental block there, similar to when I was using too much water for me to handle.

After a long walk, I flopped down. Was this it? Was I going to just ditch the camp, Lance, and look for the military dudes? I couldn't tell, but from the way it had suddenly grown silent, I assumed night was upon me. I dunno, being a son of Poseidon AND having this new power meant that I could preserve heat perhaps too well. Forgetting to put up a fire or any sort of shelter, I lost the will to stay conscious.

 _Dirt. Dirt, mud!_

I gasped, but there was no air. I found my head stuck within the earth, and the memories of drowning came back, stronger than ever. I tried to touch my face, but all I found was dirt. I pulled my head out of the ground, expecting to see sunlight. Instead, there was only darkness… and a brilliant white. I turned my attention to the moon, fully viewing it in its eternal glory. I could see again.

To get a better view, I hopped on top of a tree, the enhanced strength making the task easier by tenfold. I just… sat there, watching the night sky. Millions of stars were present, beyond my count.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Annabeth asked.

I ignored her and fell asleep again, in the warm cradle of the tree.

 **A/N:**

 **Goodsir: Ah, darn. Still mostly filler. I promise we'll get to the good stuff next chapter! Notice: We'll be moving this to T, as I believe it will get some more traffic. Once the… *ahem* more** _ **mature**_ **things are up, we'll move it back up.**

 **REVIEW!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:**

 **Goodsir:**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Oh my stars and garters (is that how it goes?)! We did it! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!**

 **Lance: Right, so it's nice to see he hasn't changed much. Shouting like a maniac, late to the party, as always. At least you didn't take an** _ **entire**_ **month unlike last time.**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: The Maths were biting me!**

 **Lance: Right… Anyway, here's the next chapter for all of you who manage to put up with that… guy.**

 **Percy:**

The sun had just begun to rise by the time I woke up. Birds were singing, the grasshoppers were still singing, and my head felt like someone had dropped an anvil on it. Good GODS! My head! "Gah! Shit!" I mumbled, having to force myself to wrap around the tree unless I wanted to take a sudden mud nap. Hint: I did not.

Once the pain subsided, I took a quick review of my surroundings. Still in a tree? Check. Grassy fields nearby empty of monsters and people? Check. Spooky ghost of Annabeth still haunting my sorry ass? Gone. For now.

Anyhoo, once everything was good enough I slowly lowered myself from the tree. Contrary to what the Hunger Games taught, sleeping in a tree was neither comfortable nor good for your back. Seriously, keeping your back locked on to durable, scratchy wood would drive nearly anyone insane.

Dew had soaked into my shoes when I landed, catching my attention but not surprising me. For the whatever-th time in a row, the gods were gone so I had no idea how my powers were going to react.

I shook the remains of the tree bark from my clothes, checked to make sure I didn't take any surprise injuries over night (you'd be surprised how often something like that happened to a demigod), and then set off for the base. I could feel Gaea's influence pull at me as I concentrated to bring it forward. It was nearly instantaneous, seeing as how my sight went away faster than in an ink cloud.

With my human sight gone, I could once again see the surrounding earth, only this time with a whole lot of nothing above it. Sure, I could sense when this dirt chunk or that rock was suddenly flung into the air, but aside from that it was like looking at a starless sky. However, that wasn't really what I was after.

Though sensory overload was a total bitch in this sight, I could still go a few seconds before narrowing my vision. Kind of like a sonar, but with contractions instead of pulses. Yeah, in all honesty I have no idea how to describe it better. That was usually Rick's schtick. Every few bursts, I would sense an oddity in the terrain: an unusually large dirt mound here, divots in the dirt there. The various blips of oil popped up again, but this time, I could feel a metallic touch around it… Like a can… aluminum? I didn't know much about vehicles, but I supposed some types of aluminum could make a military vehicle. Of course, this information wasn't all at once. I had to space these damned bursts out every few minutes because of how many rocks, pebbles, dirt mounds, and other geo-sciency things were in between me and the military vehicles.

Still, after some time of trying an pulsing, I got a rough feel for where their base was. It at least about three kilometers south-west of my position. So, I started hiking. Was I going to take on all of them at once? No. But I could provide valuable intel. As I walked I began to play around with my new power. The farthest I could keep my new 'sight' without overlaying myself was about ten feet in a circle. Any farther and my head would start to hurt. Of course, I was talking about a full visual. Not looking for specific things.

Perhaps the best discovery today was how to turn it on and off. It wasn't a thing based on will, like my hydrokinesis. It was like a mental trick. I didn't nail it every time, but the few times I did taught me that blinking made it easier.

After about three hours of walking, mainly due to me stopping once in a while to try and figure out my new powers, and man, I had a hard time. I could occasionally "push" or squeeze things together, but it didn't go farther than that. I could also sense large concentrations of metal, although ore was a different story. The amount of impurities made it hard to detect. However, mud was a different story. Anything with a good degree of water and dirt in it was easy work. I guess trying to control it as both water and dirt made it easier, even though I had to focus nearly everything in doing so.

I would have said something about a menacing plot of land, but the base looked just like those forward bases they showed in movies: guard towers every so often along the bordering wall, the actual wall itself being large slats fit into place. Alarm towers popped up here and there, and the faint sounds of military training and exertion could be heard. I'm pretty sure this was the right area. It didn't seem to rely on any previous structure, and that was a feat in itself. I mean, building a military installation locked down with… Jesus, the amount of weapons here, just on the outside, was demoralizing.

They were pretty well positioned, too. Bastards had set up on a large hill. Most of it was barricaded with obstacles and patrols, heavy guns and the occasional artillery piece. With only one road to and from the base, the thing was on serious lockdown. A large checkpoint sat about halfway up the road, and had at least three watchtowers overlooking it. I had the good fortune of seeing all this from the cover of a forest, but even then I didn't exactly like being near the base. I had no clue if they had spotted me… Scouting? Definitely. Infiltration? No, not really… while that "join us" sign was inviting to a part of my mind, I was in no way good at it. Be prepared, Annabeth recited.

Blow them up? I needed explosives and intel of where their ammunition stockpiles were. Oh, right. I closed my eyes and tried to grasp that part of my mind, and it came eventually. Immediately, there was a load of intel. First, their fuel. Solar panels, and… oil. Lots of it. I guessed we could just wait for them to run out, but by the way they seemed to not give a shit about their consumption, there was a potential source. Rigs? Not a problem yet. There were also some oddly placed patches of land, sorta like farms. What? Did you think they _wouldn't_ have one? Everyone needed a reliable source of food.

Monsters. Mutants, specifically. It seemed they were more focused on repelling those. After all, there was literally no human threat in the area. Our forces had no chance of taking them on, so all that stuff had to be reserved for the mutants. That got me thinking about them. They clearly hadn't spread out this far yet, so this was looking pretty good. I turned my attention towards the hum of a truck, and I reflexively lowered into the trees.

A black truck stopped at the checkpoint, and someone opened the gates. In there were traces of oil, but not too much or neatly packed like guns. I assumed this was food of some kind. The sight was very random in terms of what I saw, but with the right focus everything was possible. I turned it off and looked for the water in their bodies. I could 'feel' where they were, but it wasn't as precise compared to my vision.

I sat there for another hour or so, gathering as much information and intelligence as I could from my little vantage point. It was boring for the most part, sitting still for so long without moving too much. Still, better than being shot because I wanted to take a stroll. In those two hours I learned four major things.

First, these people _did_ have helicopters. Probably stripped straight from the military and still fresh-loaded with enough firepower to wipe us off the [no longer existing] map. Some of them looked to be transport helicopters. They were thick and bulky looking, kind of like a giant, metal pelican. If memory serves, the Hephaestus cabin had two of the same helicopters. Blackhawks I think they were called. Either that or Nighthawks, I'm not entirely sure. I never really shared their enthusiasm for technology, not unless it helped me killed monsters quicker. I preferred simple things, like a knife, or a spear or something.

Still, two hours felt long enough to study this base without giving myself away. That and if I didn't move soon I'd go freaking nuts and possibly get myself shot, blown up, or possibly hunted. Going as slow as I could, I ducked and crawled deeper into the forest. I was anxious to leave faster, but I knew to better keep quiet when they had tanks and helicopters.

Once I felt I was deep enough in the forest, I moved normally again. I traced my steps back as best I could, using my new earth powers to try and find my way back. Went about as well as you would think with my luck, but I did make it back (and totally did not take about six hours to get back in a straight path). Yeah, navigation without a map was much harder than fiction gave credit for.

Night had fallen already by the time I got back. The gate guards were changing shifts as I reached the gate. They didn't do much aside from give me a complimentary nod as I walked through. Everyone was going to bed as I entered the town square. Lance was part of the group taking watch on the wall, along with John and Gwen. She gave me a dirty look - which was already becoming a common occurrence - but mainly left me alone. Good, I was tired and was not looking forward to having an argument.

My little cottage was calling my name like a Hallelujah chorus. I shuffled over, locked the door behind me, and just fell right onto the bed. I didn't even have to wait, I was out like a light.

 **~Lance~**

Brother had finally returned after spending an entire day 'practicing' his swordplay. Well, that was what I told Gwen whenever she asked where he was. Granted, it wasn't a very detailed lie, but it was convincing enough considering Perseus spent his time either resting, scouting, killing mutants, or practicing, which gave me four options to lie with.

Still, Gwen wasn't too happy with him staying out for the entire day. She usually didn't care about what he did, but ever since the invasion she harbored a resentment for him. She placed the majority of the blame on him for not having been there in the first place. It wasn't fair, but John tried to assure me time and again that she was just working through the anguish. Honestly, I didn't care because I knew Perseus had no care either. However, I was interested in what the scouts had to say about the base.

A seemingly nigh-impenetrable fortress situated on a perfect hill, walls and towers lining its perimeter, armored trucks and helicopters going in and out at random intervals. Honestly, it was sounding more and more like a modern Troy. I'm sure Brother had gathered some more information from his little… uh, 'practice session.'

However, I felt asking him for information could wait until morning. From the looks of him, he didn't exactly have an easy walk. Wonder what happened to him.

Back on the wall, I was stationed with John and Gwen, both having volunteered for this night's watch. John had a semi-automatic rifle. Gwen had a marksman's rifle with a scavenged ACOG scope. I was told that she had learned from Samuel, and even though I never really met him, I was told he was a good man. John and Gwen mainly held idle chitchats while I spent my shift looking out into the night. I couldn't explain it, and neither could Percy, but I had a sort of power rush at night. My senses heightened, I could see better than others at night, and I could last in a fight against my brother long enough to actually have him sweat a little.

"Lance?" John asked. I was shaken from my boredom by his question. Guess they were trying to get me to talk with them. I could only imagine what they would ask.

"What? Sorry, I wasn't really paying attention." I saw no reason to try and lie to them when I really wasn't paying attention. I'll be honest, small talk actually bored me more than reading history. At least history was exciting with revolutions, wars, and things that weren't about the weather. Gods, I never understood how people could talk about the weather.

John sighed, "I was asking how your training with Percy was going?" Well, it wasn't what I expected right off the bat, so I told them.

"It's going well. I'm feeling much better than when I first joined." Of course, for some reason, this felt… annoying. Like you know those things that you never talked about, and you get super annoyed when people ask you?

Gwen looked upset, judging by the way she crossed her arms at my response. "I've noticed he pushes you harder than most of the other trainees your age." I shrugged.

"Well, I can't tell you anything you don't already know. We're related, and our family was always big on… martial arts." Was that the right word? Not completely true, but certainly not the truth as it was. That was one of the few good things I learned from Zeus, mainly whenever he and Hera had a spat. It happened in public on Olympus more than you'd imagine. I assume they just got used to it and started doing it in front of everyone else.

"Look, Gwen and I are just worried that Percy might be pushing you a bit too hard." John replied. He even put his hand on my shoulder as a sign of comfort. Oh boy, if only they knew about the hell I went through training with Myrmidons. They always had "training" fights to the death because they were immortal and could revive on Olympus, and they only pulled their punches enough to _not_ kill me. Didn't mean they went easy, though. Chiron once told me camp half-blood had a lighter regime, but not _that_ easier. I believe you could still seriously maim your opponent, but then there would be no desert.

Still, instead of laying on them that my brother and I were half-god myths walking around I just shrugged. Percy told me that was the average human teenager's response to adult worry.

"I'm fine, if that's what you're wondering." I told them. I'm sure they talked some more about my safety after that, but I tuned them out and went back to staring out into the wilderness. Off in the distance I could see a tree line, and I could easily imagine all the monsters that stalked there. The monster threat had died down after the remaining engineers patched up the last of the wall, and set up a second, inner wall around the main square as a precaution, but that still didn't mean we didn't get the rogue mutant wolf or bear, now and then.

Speaking of which, a pack of six or so appeared within my sights. From what the watchguy taught me, they had been approaching us for at least 30 minutes. Seeing them was a fluke, but a good one. Still, glowing red eyes… really? Guess that was a design flaw. I honestly think it would be more scary if they _didn't_ have eyes. But how could they see with no eyes? Maybe some kind of sensory organ on their knees?

 _Shut up, brain._

"Gwen, John. Wolves, that way!" I pointed to the wolves, grabbing Riptide from my belt while Gwen switched to a longer-ranged scope. Again, I know seeing them should have been nigh-impossible, but I told you the night gave me strength. Oddly enough the monsters seemed to get bolder at night, but I had assumed they were like the old monsters, where they used the night as cover and to scare mortals.

"I see them," Gwen said, lips curling in distaste when she counted them. Yeah, seven wasn't a pleasant pack to deal with. She didn't open fire…sniping was apparently much harder than people gave credit for. Instead, she kept an eye on them while John alerted another group of guards below us.

The defensive groups were armed with improvised pikes and spears, and we had installed some openings through the walls to use them without having the hassle to have more people leave the town. Otherwise, us interior guards all had a makeshift one-hander with a dingy shield, or some other weapon. No bows, since they weren't really effective against targets of that size. John stayed with Gwen, training his rifle on them while I helped organize the offense.

"Are you sure we can't use guns?" Someone nervously added. Gwen shook her head. "We need to save ammo."

By now, the midnight-black and white wolves had noticed us, and started a mad dash towards the riflemen. Gwen signalled the defense and they moved in under her, pikes ready to lash out. Mia popped open the… well, openings, and ran back to her tent.

"I'll take the big one." I told them.

They didn't argue. I had shown my kills to some other fighters, and apparently they were impressed… The joy I felt didn't overlap the shit of never seeing many of those faces again. Those damn military dudes… Riptide glinted in the moonlight as I readied the blade. My heart began to beat harder, practically jumping out of my chest in anticipation. The other tensed up and readied to fight the monsters.

They were feral, truly. Since their only apparent target was Gwen and John, they tried to jump up and hit them, and the moment they did so, our hidden pikes thrusted towards them. A variety of pained howls filled our ears, but this was a good thing.

"Now!" I yelled. I know, a tad bit late. The two manning the gate pulled back, opening up a gust of cold air.

We charged to their exposed flanks, and I thrust Riptide into the first's shoulder, and further down into its neck. My two flanks, the spears stabbed at the other others. Then, our duos of sword-and-shield fighters each took their own wolf. In the heat of the action, I took notice of a shattered pike head… And a monstrous growl. Its flank was barely harmed, but thankfully no one was injured, and the other fighters had led the smaller wolves away to make room. The lead wolf lunged with a slash, probably hoping to tear me open like a package of kibble, but I had learned from Percy's School of Ass Kicking -as he so eloquently put it -and weaved under and around the attack. The wolf was open, and soon found a broken bronze sword piercing its chest. I pulled back.

Percy had taught me first to end a battle as quickly as possible, and to not drag it out like the movies or stories did. So I took Riptide and thrust forward at its neck. Unfortunately, the thing was still fast enough to block, although its large forearms gained a gash. A bit of black and purple sludge fell on my shirt. Damn, this shit was just so difficult to wash out. Well, if it was going to be that way… then it was on! I weaved to its side and thrust towards an opening, but the wolf leaped back and back in with its jaws snapping. Big mistake, as I stepped through, decapitating the wolf during its attack.

Still, I had other things to worry about at that moment. While two people could hold off a wolf, it usually took three survivors to take one down with no scratches. I rushed the left wolf first, catching it by surprise and stabbing it in the side with Riptide. The two guards took the moment to help the others with their wolf.

My next wasn't as large as the leader, nor as fast, so a quick slash across its chest to the abdomen and it was down for the count. The four guards were hacking and stabbing their wolf, and soon enough we were all covered in grime and monster blood, but alive and only suffered moderate scratching. The ones with spears poked at their corpses for a while, until the damn things all started dissolving.

"That's the fourth one this week," I heard one of the guards grumble. Wait, what?

"Fourth?" I asked. "Yeah, these things have been attacking more and more. "Kinda like it happens more when you guys are gone." another told me. i knew who she was referring to, but… that sounded strange. And why weren't Percy and I told of this?

We headed back inside, one guard going to the infirmary to get her scratches looked at. I rejoined Gwen and John back on the wall. Our shift would be ending in a couple of hours, but I could pass the time with the new supply of questions I had. "So, when were you guys going to tell us about the mutant attacks?" I asked, not even trying to hide my accusatory tone.

John lowered his shoulders, obviously not wanting to have this conversation. Fortunately for him, Gwen answered instead. "We didn't want to worry you. Percy is so bent on training you that we feel it would be best for him if he didn't have another thing to worry about." Huh. Guess that constantly pissed off attitude was a ruse.

"He's been looking so down lately, we didn't want him to lose it." John supplied. "Ever since you guys came back, he's been… acting odd. He's been spending less and less time around, going out on missions or looking for mutants to fight."

...They weren't wrong, especially about that last part.

"We're worried he might not be moving on properly." John explained. I sighed. Percy wasn't one for talking about his feelings. From the stories told about him, the only people he ever really trusted with his feelings were Mother, Annabeth, and Grover. Seeing as how I wasn't any of them I figured I had no chance getting to him.

 _Hmm, how can I get him to open up? I could take him on a monster-hunting quest and try that. Or I could challenge him to a spar at night, maybe get him that way_ , I thought.

I had a feeling they were kind of right about him not moving on from the attack. My guess was that he wanted to get back at the people that killed so many of his friends. If I were in his shoes, I'd probably want the same thing. Maybe it could be a start. Gwen wouldn't approve of an attack on the base, and I could understand since if we didn't get them in one blow then we'd have Hades to pay.

Still, Percy was powerful, strong enough to cause even Zeus to worry. I may not have his strength, but I did have knowledge of nearly every ancient demigod and their tactics. Odysseus and his success against the Trojan Wall. Achilles and his group of warriors. Heracles and his conquering of the Twelve Labors. Mortals may have learned the general ideas, but they never learned about the monsters, bandits, and other trials along their adventures. I had even learned about Percy's adventures, mainly because he was my only real thing to look up to, but also because he saved the world on three separate occasions. I had learned about how he defeated Procrustus, tricked Atlas, slew Giants, and took on the Norse mythology.

I wasn't a child of Athena, and I certainly wasn't Annabeth (aka the wise one), but I could suffice for an average tactician. For the next few minutes or so, I tried to think of ways to get Percy to open up more, and then transitioned to how to attack the base.

"Oh, and," Gwen added, noticing a yellow shade sneak past. "Don't think you can skip watch duty by giving your job to a kid."

Clove, or Clive, as he put it, gulped nervously. Gwen snapped the binoculars from my hand and threw it towards him.

I snickered.

Once my own duties ended, I figured the first thing we'd need plenty of explosives. How to get those explosives was another story altogether, but one step at a time. I headed back to my little place, shut the door, then crawled into bed.

 **-(00)-**

The moment I saw the flying ship, I knew it had to be a dream. The ship looked like a someone saw a stick figure and made it into an airship. The thing had four wings that acted like slow wings, two in front, two in back, propelling the ship along the skies. It rocked a little like a ship at sea, but what really got me was how it had no propellers. Instead, and this is me just spitballing here, it had what looked to be thrusters, three positioned at the back and two placed under the ship near the midsection. It was… actually pretty badass looking, but the one nagging question that kept coming back was _Why the hell am I looking at this thing from the side?_

I looked around, taking in my surroundings and found myself in what I had assumed to be an ornate waiting room. Giant, half circle windows on either side, built-in lighting adoring both the floors and ceiling, and plenty of people standing about. Now, I'm usually not one to judge, but the first thing that I noticed about the people was that some had normal brown, black, and blond hair, a few others had _unique_ colors. I saw blue, pink, and one person even had a dark shade of crimson. It was almost black, now that I looked at it.

Once I got a full look at everything, I noticed I was rocking slightly. I took another look outside, this time looking along both sides, and noticed the two massive wings slowly fluttering up and down.

 _Shit, where the Hell am I_? I wondered, looking around the room again to try and find some sort of hint as to where I was, or possibly where I was going. Maybe a map, or a manifest? There was some kind of poster, but I couldn't recognize any details… As I looked around, a wall-mounted black screen flickered to life, and a woman appeared on the opposite side of the waiting area. She reminded me of a… teacher of some kind, with light blond hair and a supposed ponytail. Maybe a tutor?

She began to talk, but I couldn't hear anything. No sound whatsoever. It was like the world was on mute, not that I minded. However, as she spoke, more and more I was more interested in how everyone aboard had some sort weapon on them. Some had strange swords that I was sure wouldn't be effective, others various rifles and polearms, but a couple had some sort of weapon I had never even seen before. The one that caught my eye, however, was a white and silver rifle, not too big, not too small. A wicked scythe sat where the bayonet would have been, along with some other fancy mechanisms I didn't understand.

"Nice, ain't it?" A shape materialized next to me, a puff of smoke scattering off. I couldn't tell his face, but the bandages created a strange image. Sort of like a mummy, if that mummy had come from Colorado (when it still existed).

This made me aware of the… well, I wasn't that observant. It was like a castle, you know, like the ones from those old kids books? The ones with the pointy towers? It was like one of those, but with a humongous jar of fireflies placed on the tallest tower in the center of the entire castle. I hummed in approval of the lavishly decorated gardens and entrance, admiring the serene beauty, leading up to the castle with the enormous beacon. Good gods, the more I looked at the castle, the more I felt… nostalgic? Worn? What is that term for when you feel sad and hollow, but hopeful and happy at the same time?

It was quite a view…

 **-Percy-**

"Hey, Percy?" Lance shouldered into my room, throwing the door off its hinges and collapsing in a cloud of dust.

On what could almost be described as reflex, I bolted up and grabbed my knife, before realizing that it was merely my brother. There was a minute of silence.

"What?" I groaned.

"Uh… what?" Lance hesitated.

I was irritated. "What were you going to say?"

"Oh. Right. I was… just wondering if you're doing ok."

"What do you mean?"

Lance thought his answer for a second. "The people… no, never mind. It's nothing." He looked down at the mess.

Walking to the sink, I took a gulp of water, controlling it to rinse through my teeth and finding… shit. I spat the contents out into a disposal hole and walked out to the settlement.

"Oh," I added. "Don't forget to fix that."

Now was seven, Kronos reminded me. Not many others were up at this hour, mainly the 'veterans' of the group, so I saw about two or three people on my way to breakfast. The meal that day was boxss of dry oats, powdered with a hint of old cinnamon and served with the last packages of powdered milk. I had taken a place at a table on the far side of the open tent, away from everyone. Normally, I'd talk to someone like Helen or Jacob, but hey, life isn't fair to us all.

Last night had been a dreamless sleep, which was a frequent thing for me these days. I guess without Apollo around I wouldn't get many dreams of the future. Oh well. Halfway through my breakfast grog, Lance had walked in. Normally he'd be sleeping until ten or something, which no one really complained about since he was mainly shifted for night watch, but today he'd clearly had other intentions. Maybe it was that thing he wouldn't tell me. He didn't even bother to grab breakfast, just made a direct beeline for my table. What's gotten into him?

He sat across from me. "Brother, I've been thinking…" he began.

"You gonna tell me what you wanted to say just then?" I quipped. "Is this…" I whispered.

"About girls?"

"Brother, we don't have any female teenagers…" Okay, true, but true from the beginning too. We never really got many survivors in the way of under 18. To think about mom… yeah, I would see her rather find _me_ instead of protecting herself. A shame, really, but I couldn't blame them. Families were like that.

"Now isn't the time for jokes. I've been working on some plans to take over the base." This time he lowered his voice.

I raised an eyebrow, but I made no move to stop him. "I've been thinking about all the different ways we could attack the base, both as humans…" he looked around before continuing, "and as demigods."

Ok, now that got my attention.

"Now as humans we'd need a great amount of resources, but that would take too long and there's no telling when they might check on us again. Not to mention they have numbers, firepower, and defense on their side."

I swallowed the last of my oatmeal, washing the remains down with the rest of the milk. "So we can't go at it as humans," I surmised. Another word Annabeth liked to toss around. My guess was correct, seeing as Lance nodded.

"Yeah, so we go at it as demigods. We can't let anyone know who we are, so we'll need disguises or some way to hide our identities. There's a great opportunity soon. The more… experienced members guess that there'll be a storm around tonight."

"But what about their guns?" I asked. "That's where you and the rain come in. I know rainwater is the hardest to control compared to seawater, but if you can manage to control the water to damage their equipment, then we'll have a shot. Mind telling me what you saw for perimeter defense?"

I paused…

And laughed.

Really loud. I wish no one had seen, but there was no point trying to hide it anyways.

"Lance, you don't just _attack_ a base. It's more complicated than that." I slapped him on the back. "Come on, let's work on it together."

Man, seeing that flabbergasted face made my day.

Retrieving several papers and maps from the white tent, we set up shop in our shack. Lance peeked outside to make sure no one was looking, and shut the (now fixed) door.

At first, I was not convinced. But as time went on and the plans got more solid, I thought we had a chance. _Thought_. Maybe it was revenge, maybe it was about gaining approval from the survivors, but as I reflect, it was probably more about how they were doing better than us.

"Lance," I said, catching him before he could go on planning again, "there's something else I have to tell you. When I went out to find the base, I had… another experience." Lance shot me a confused look.

"How do you mean?"

"Remember when we were going to Dad's? How I had that little episode and suddenly got stronger? Well I had another experience… with the earth."

That caught his attention. "You mean, like Gaea?" I nodded. "On my way to the base, I was practising a little with new earth powers. It made me blind physically, but I could still see with the vibrations around me."

"Is there anything else you can do?" he asked. I had to force myself not to squirm with the way he looked at me. It was too much like Annabeth. "I can control dirt, but only just a little. The biggest advantage right now is finding the basic shape of structures. Anything moving, really."

Lance nodded, his face calm but I could tell he was excited. His legs were bouncing fast enough to leave afterimages.

"Alright, this changes everything, then. We'll have to come up with a new plan, but we're going to take these bastards down _tonight_." At least he was enthusiastic about it.

 **-(00)-**

Night had fallen. The cracked moon had taken refuge behind some serious looking thunder giants. A part of me wondered if there was a chance of tornados. Nature wasn't exactly predictable anymore… okay, probably not, but whatever. Man, I have no idea how weather works. Should have studied harder.

Lance and I were in my shack, going over the plan once again before we headed out. We both wore warm clothes colored dark blue to fit in with the night. Kronos was safely tucked under my sleeve in its bracelet form, while Lance carried Riptide in a sheath on his hip. We had sewn hoods onto our jackets, while Lance had a simple filtration mask.

"Right, so no questions?" he asked. I nodded.

Let it be said that we were both strategists, but I was the less patient one. Lance grew in an environment filled with ancient gods that could kick your ass easily, and relying on muscle was the worst mistake. I'd always feel frustrated when I wasn't part of the action, there to help, or winning the battle. The worst was when a friend fell...

Everyone else was tucking in their homes for the night. The night watch on shift had bundled themselves in scrap rain jackets to protect them from the rain. Gwen, John, and Bran were long asleep, the duties of being leaders tiring their minds. There was no cold, since these new… abilities made heat preservation much easier. I felt like I could take a dip in the Arctic, and be fine. refreshed, even.

In front of us was a table loaded with weapons and equipment. Two pistols, one scoped rifle, several homemade grenades, a box Lance refused to let me open (little bastard), and five boxes' full of seawater. Not exactly seawater, but close enough. It mainly relied on us trying to find the best concentration of salt, which took a couple of tries.

I took one of the pistols, two grenades, and loaded the boxes onto my back. Lance took the rest, and we hid most of our armaments under our jackets before going outside. Hank, the "veteran" didn't even bother stopping us. Lance and I leaving was common practice, mainly because everyone thought I had singled him out as a favorite trainee. That was partially true, if only because he was a demigod and had been born to fight monsters.

We trekked a few hundred meters in a straight line away from the gate. Once we were out of sight, we turned left and began our march to the base. As we walked, I swapped to my 'Earth-vision' - yeah, that's what I'm calling it until I come up with a better name - and began to 'look' around the area. Monsters were all over the place, but they weren't attacking. Now, I'm not one to look a gifted horse in the mouth, but even I had to question that. A couple paced back and forth as we walked by, but none of them made a move.

"Lance, there's monsters everywhere… but they're not attacking." Lance looked around (all I saw was a half-bright silhouette turn its head back and forth).

"We probably shouldn't overstay our welcome, then." Picking up the pace, but still jogging at a leisurely speed towards the base (hey, that rhymes!). With my trainees, I had them fed with the best food possible, to ensure they would be in top shape, and sprinting half a mile before they could even _think_ about getting tired. Cause when you're in the wilds, lonely, out of ammo, and out of weapons, the best choice was to FUCKING RUN.

The Mutants picked up their pace, but so did we. Just beyond the bushes, I could feel their bodies of black-and-purple blood, churning for human flesh.

By the time we got to the base, the rain was falling pretty damn well, but I wasn't cold. The monsters had stopped following us when Lance had burned one of them with a magic blast, but I couldn't tell if there were any more around us, since the wolves had been long gone from my senses. The base was mostly dark, with only a few lights on here and there. This was it. We were going to either take these bastards down, or die trying. Preferably not dying would be good. I had to control my breathing to keep from getting too excited.

"You ready?" Lance asked. I nodded, and began to put all my focus towards the rain.

Rain was sort of a shared domain between Zeus and Poseidon, but since Poseidon kids only happened to excel in controlling large bodies of water, it belonged to Zeus. Unless it was on the ocean, of course. I gave up as soon as the mental block arrived, so plopped down the boxes of salt water instead. The water fell seamlessly under my control, while the power "buffs" as I'd like to call them made the process easier. The idea was to use the existing water to gather rainwater, therefore increasing my supply. I waved the large slither around and between trees, through grass and puddles to gather more. I sucked the last stream dry of water and brought my abomination in front of us.

"That's some freaky shit," Lance mumbled. I allowed myself a smirk as the water 'snake' made its way to the base. I tried to move it stealthily by avoiding the sights of the guards, but I face palmed once realizing my mistake.

How the fuck do snakes move?

Duh, they crawl. I moved the water down into the grass and spread it out like a flat plane, to decrease the chance of someone finding that the moving water was _not_ natural. The sheet glided…

"See that radio tower they have? Good place to start. Their tanks and cars too, if you wish." Lance spoke.

Now, Percy. The tanks or…

I guess I'll just wing it then.

BOOM!

I willed the water to freeze, and with all my strength, knocked it into a Humvee. Said aluminum armour dented and flipped over the car.

They must have had some sort of alarm system hooked up to the car, because as soon as the vehicle hit the ground, sirens started buzzing, with what I could see… woah, that was a lot of people. A symphony of other lights sprang up and soon found my ice fist, which I happily hit their lights out with (oh my god, best pun ever).

Instead of targeting the people, I had to hit them where it hurt the most- the vehicles. Without them, they would be simply men and women with rifles. Oh, the machine guns too. Without machine guns, their defence against the white-and-black menace would be weakened severely.

"Take some of it!" I shouted. Lance nodded and held a portion of the water, while i went to town on their vehicles. One, two, three, last one-

My eyes burned as a bright beacon of light focused on us, and at that moment, I had only one instinct.

Run.

Bullets rained on our position as I lost focus, forcing me to drop the water. One round grazed my arm, but I escaped the light. I didn't know how hard I ran, and for how long, but I could tell that I was in a constant struggle to avoid the spotlight. They must have realized my water snake was gone!

The alarms blared once again as a large gate opened, several squads of soldiers rushing out to greet us, laser sights scanning the forest. I chucked a grenade towards them, and dove into the ground.

One…

Two…

Three?

I looked up, to see that the soldiers were still alive, perfectly fine. What-

Oh.

I forgot to pull the pin.

Fuck me!

One of the members fired on me, drawing attention of his fellow troops. I ran back off into the forest, using as much of the terrain to my advantage as possible. I still had some saltwater left, about a bottle left. Using as much concentration as I could spare, I pulled the water into the air, having it follow me as it slowly grew larger and larger. Before long, I had collected a sphere resembling a bowling ball. I stopped and hid behind a tree, hoping to catch my breath, but more importantly, find an opportunity.

The soldiers didn't have much trouble following me into the woods, but they weren't going as fast as I was. I guess the threat of monsters will keep even the hardest bastards at bay, eh? Even if they weren't afraid, I wasn't going to let this advantage go to waste.

The soldier closest to me was about fifteen feet away, sweeping back and forth over the area in front of her. I'm not sure just how many monsters she'd dealt with, but I'm sure she wasn't expecting a ball of water to come zipping out of the forest. Poor girl didn't even react when the ball of water covered her entire head. She had stood still, a look of fear and confusion on her face as she probably tried to process what was going on.

However, that soon changed in the span of seconds as she realized she couldn't breathe. I watched from the forest as she began to thrash and throw herself about, trying to free herself from the water. I had it follow her every movement. Behind her, her comrades were just watching, stunned that water _, water_ , had come alive and was slowly killing one of them.

Instinct took over, and I focused on the fine control of water. Increasing the tension of the water around her neck, I felt the objects become one. I raised my arms and slammed it into the ground, the water following my movement. There was a sickening ' _crunch'_ as her back broke.

Instinct, survival, and fighting were not the same. She cried out silently as the last of the air escaped her broken lungs, her broken back stopping her body from trying to help. In some corner of my mind, I remembered a time where things were much simpler, a me with moral decency and a care for life. Care for life that I had taken. But I refused to stop. These people killed my friends. These people killed hundreds of men, women, and children, all just trying to survive in this _Hell_. These _people_ decided on who lived and died that day. Now… now I was returning the favor.

Any sick feelings I had were washed away in my anger, suppressed by my desire for absolute revenge, and by God I was going to get it! This was all my fault, and I was going to fix everything!

The girl hadn't even hit the forest floor (I remembered throwing her into the air) before I moved on to my next targets. I imagined dividing my mind like four plane-mirrors, and the sphere split into four.

Although rage was a powerful emotion, the process of killing was no longer a haze. Each move was methodical, like a difficult math problem. I couldn't grasp the water within their bodies, so I sent some towards them. I flung one like a bullet into some soldier's throat, and hardened its tension until it killed him. Two more water spheres, two more bodies dropping, their necks either bulged or internally combusted. I threw my last at a shotgun wielding soldier, and lodged the water halfway into his throat. I gripped my hands until it bled, with the water also contracting until I could no longer hold it. The sphere exploded, blowing a hole in the soldier's throat. Which fucker had it worse, I'll let you decide.

I let go of the water and focused on the bow diluted blood within the corpses, and grasped several tendrils. I increased then tension within my mind and spun the tendrils, sending another soldier flying to certain death. The real question was, how long before they retreat?

"Fall back! Everyone fall back!" I heard someone shout from the edge of the forest. Guess I got enough of them to get their goose.

 _Grrrr._

Or not.

Kronos was in my hand without me having to turn around. The bronze scythe whirled about to strike at the mutant wolf that had somehow managed to sneak up on me. The thing jumped back before I could kill it. We locked eyes with each other, its burning yellow orbs unblinking as we stared each other down. My hand tightened around Kronos. The mutant wolf growled at me, regarded the scythe in my hand, then… moved right by me? What?

 **A/N:**

 **Goodsir: Let's end it here, shall we? Good work this week, P3pp3r. Fantastic writing as usual!**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: Aight! And spectacular writing on your part as well, Goodsir! Sorry I took so long, college homework is killing me. Thankfully I'll have this weekend (and Monday and Tuesday) to myself, so I should be on more during that time.**

 **Goodsir: Oh, thanksgiving extended break, I see? Me too.**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: NOPE! Just staying in another state with visiting family, and classes those days aren't going to be doing more than study sessions.**

 **Goodsir: Well, then… REVIEW!**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:**

 **Goodsir:**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: You see this? This is what happens when I stay up until midnight and write what I think. It's beautiful!**

 **Lance: Looks like an incoherent script, you jackal.**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: *Le gasp!* Moi? A jackal? I was sure I would be more of a Doberman… Oh well! Now, where'd I put that jar?**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: AND PENGUINS!**

 **Lance: As usual we're getting along like wasps and babies.**

 **Iznelomviing: Yes and no, Lance isn't capable of enough control to do that. Percy himself can change water tension, but the only application I remember is punching people, which doesn't even seem to be that effective against demigods. Remember a bullet has a hell load of energy, I (Goodsir) think that it's going to take a lot more skill to form an effective water shield. Better to have a lot of water and block bullets that way.**

 **Darknaim: We know :)**

I had already made it inside the compound when the gunfire started. Judging by the distance, Perseus had led them back into the woods. And judging by the slowly fading calls for retreat, he was destroying them. I couldn't fail him, then. Not when we had come so far. The base was less populated than we had originally believed, no more than a hundred-fifty here. That meant they either used their machines to make themselves a larger army than they actually were, or this wasn't their main base. Either way, we needed to destroy it.

After Perseus' water fist had died out, the soldiers appeared to start organizing themselves again. I ducked underneath a box to avoid a squad of four soldiers running to join their team, and ran towards the vehicle compound. At least, I hoped it was the vehicle compound. Perseus had only known that it was at the opposite side from where we entered, but at least military bases weren't supposed to be very confusing to navigate.

I breathed heavily from the anxiety, nervous to hell. Even if this was my idea, everything was far easier said than done. It was only my second mission… I regretted not taking up more. I shook the dark thoughts from my head. Now was not the time for distractions.

The edge of the barracks created a sort of barrier with the bright lights shining against it. As carefully as I could, I peeked around the edge, having to look down to block the blinding lights with my hood. Gods, why was it that this base had so many bright lights? Were they trying to blind their troops?

Another group of soldiers stood outside the locked gates to the compound, discussing some sort of strategy. I felt the need to listen in, but eliminating them was a better idea, or at least distract them long enough for brother to continue the plans. Distracting them from the watchtower would take too long, and once they spotted me, I would be dead. The grenades… well, I wasn't trying to attract anyone, so that was a no-go.

That left me only one choice. Magic.

I usually felt lacking in my capacity of magic, but weeks of refinement and practicing its limit had helped me stretch its stamina. I pulled my hand back like a bowstring and cooked up some godly energy, focusing on the intent of disintegration and chaos.

The soldiers hadn't even finished checking the weapons when the first three soldiers in front of their leader had searing gold patches through their chests. Unfortunately, they were more prepared than I realized, as my corner suddenly became the magnet for every bullet in the area. Gunfire cackled against the storm, pinging off the barracks side like a xylophone gone mad. I channeled the golden aura again and moved away from the bullets. This move was expensive and messy, but emergency was still emergency.

Shit, Percy would have found an actual way to mess them up with much greater efficiency than I could ever do on my own, and now because of my excitement I'd jeopardize the mission.

 _RAWR!_

Wait, what?

All at once things went from bad to sideways.

The black-white shape of a huge, lean mutant wolf hopped over the walls, landing on a soldier. The man was crushed into paste instantly, and it lunged for another.

 _RATATATA_

A hail of explosive gunfire went towards the wolf, but it was fast enough to raise two armoured arms, blocking a few of them. The sound of bullet penetrating flesh had never been so strange… A bear crashed through the barricade, white claws mauling apart another soldier. I decided to take my chances, dashing towards the vehicles. Just as I was about to make it, someone decided I made a better target than the monsters in front of them, because I once again found bullets flying my way. Most of them missed, but one of them hit me square in my arm, causing it to flinch backwards and almost lose my balance.

I dove behind another building, twisting as to not land on my now injured arm. The rise in heart rate was inevitable, and I bit back from fainting. Pain burned in my arm as my muscles felt like they'd burst from my skin. I leaned against the building, checking the wound for how bad it would be. Well, how do I put this… I was… less than competent in terms of medical expertise.

Be it by luck or by a whim of the dead Fates, the bullet cut straight through and hadn't hit any bones. At least I wouldn't have to worry about removing the damn thing, though I knew I would absolutely hate the next few seconds. Why? Because I had to close the hole, and the only way I could do that currently was with magic. You see where I'm going with this?

Having no idea how to cast a healing spell (wasn't like I was ever taught), I decided a trial by fire was the best choice. A searing, magical left grip latched onto the wound, and I cried in pain (it certainly felt more like a growl). I waited until most of the pain subsided a little in my arm, before once again making my way around the chaos that had sprouted within the base. The monsters were everywhere, and I was sure they'd overwhelm the base soon. Like, it was just a feeling. No one had ever seen such a large incursion before… actually, this could be a bad thing. If the military didn't take care of them, we would never have the firepower to hold off such large amounts of mutants.

In the night, I healed faster. I could feel small portions of muscles start to shift as they grew to fill up empty space, but it was still a slow process. I figured my arm would heal eventually, probably in about a day or so, but I didn't have that kind of time. Already more and more monsters were swarming the base.

Through the madness I ran, toting what little munitions I had left. I had lost one bomb, which now I realize I could have been blown to bits because of it… so thanks to whatever might count as fate I didn't die then. My special box was still intact and its contents were undamaged. I hoped _the_ weapon, _that_ weapon would be the key to destroying the base.

I dodged rogue mutants, fought passed the occasional human guard- having no trouble making it quick since a monster usually came around to finish the job. My mind was hyper focusing on the task at hand, literally pushing out anything that wasn't necessary for my survival as I made haste for the vehicle depot. Now I know that I'm not one to look a gifted Pegasus in the mouth (is that how the saying goes?) but even I had to question the validity of the base construction overseer putting the vehicle storage _right next to_ the fuel storage. I mean, I understand it's to make refueling easier, but no self-respecting commander would put anything that could cause a spark right next to their most valuable assets.

Whatever. It wasn't like I could complain to the commander, seeing as how he was probably dead.

I set up right between a large troop transport truck - the ones with the large beds and the tarp tent over it- and the nearest fuel container. Many rows of green, steel cylinders each laid on a support of four steel legs, all marked with warning signs. I placed a time bomb for every other fuel tank, and used the spare ones on the vehicles, just for good measure. I stepped behind another rigged jeep and…

Holy crap.

Nice.

The tank was a beautiful yet terrifying machine, and I couldn't help but run around it, looking for all the little details. The machine gun, the curvature of the barrel, each individual piece of the tread… If only I could drive this! But a little voice at the back of my mind reminded me of what the soldiers could have done to us with it, if it was ever deployed.

"Well, lookie what we got here," a gruff voice growled. Slowly I turned, a healthy dose of fear creeping into my heart. The commander from the previous encounter was standing over me, his left eye closed from a large gash going down that side of his face, his mauled left arm creating a small waterfall of blood. His shoulder was dark with the crimson, some unseen wound being left untreated. He was a dead man, but that didn't stop him from pointing a pistol at me.

"That was some plan you had, kid."

Shit.

"I'll admit, I would love to know how you managed that light trick when you killed three good men, but seeing as how we'll both be dead soon…" He coughed once, a spray of blood coating the air in front of him. "I'll let it slide."

Neither of us moved. I got a good look at him now that I wasn't being shot at. He was a tanned man, his skin reminding me of those sandpaper strips. You know, the ones with that khaki-colored lighter side? Yeah, those. His eyes, by contrast, were a sharp blue, piercing with the same look Zeus gave any demigod on Olympus, myself included. His hair was a buzzcut, and I couldn't make out the color against the dark sky. Speaking of which, it had stopped raining. Shit… I didn't know if I could cast a bolt faster than his trigger finger.

"Before you shoot me," I started. "Tell me, why attack a harmless little village just trying to get by?" I couldn't hide the accusation in my voice when I asked him. How could I? This was probably the guy who gave the order to slaughter nearly everyone I cared about. I at least had the right to get pissed off.

"Because you were a threat."

"I beg your fucking pardon?" He laughed at my question.

"Just orders from the bossman." He chuckled. "Like you and that other kid."

I felt a cold chill run down my spine. "What do you mean?"

He seemed to ignore my question. "Uh… ah… oh…" he chuckled deliriously. "Then again, he did manage to kill 15 of them mutants with a farm tool."

While he was talking, I used my mediocre influence to try and manipulate the nearest water into coming to my aid. Maybe I could form a pressure shield? No, my mind reasoned. There would not be a second of my soon-to-end existence where I could make a sheet of water build enough tension to block a bullet. Hell, I didn't even know how much tension would be required for that. So… Ice maybe? I cursed and remembered the crap was out of my domain, as usual.

My control wasn't working. Everytime I tried to influence the water, pain shot through my head like a thunderbolt. No matter what I tried, it just wouldn't work. Magic bolt was far too slow, and I was sure he'd be prepared, despite his unstable state of mind. I mentally cursed, hoping the commander would keep talking long enough for me to figure a way out. Or at the very least, stall long enough for Brother to come through and save the day, just like the stories.

"You know, I really hate to do this kid," the man gruffed. I didn't believe him for a second. "But this is curtains for you." I looked down the barrel of the pistol, watching, hoping.

He pulled the trigger.

 **Percy**

In the cold, rainy, and wet nigh, something felt wrong. I just knew it. Something wrong had happened, and the uneasy feeling in my gut never proved me wrong. Well, except in cases of self-doubt and mental instability.

I spun Kronos out, a metallic smelling gush of wind caressing my face. I got into a lazy, unbalanced stance and swept Kronos' extended blade across my field of vision, making two pieces out of anything it came into contact with. Men, women, mutants. I sent a stray rifle round deflected with the length of Kronos, and hacked apart a soldier, his weapon and uniform falling into two perfectly cut parts. There, the grey uniforms. It was very strange, wasn't it?

I ignored the bastard's innards spilling out from my cross section. The rain quickly filled up in his body, spilling out great portions of blood and guts.

The feeling got worse, like when you know something bad's going to happen but you just don't know what that something bad is. Fighting through felt like eternity until I realized the layer of muck and blood, be it evaporating or not, stopped being washed off by the rain. I was caked in dry, red, fluid, only this time, it didn't smell of gold.

It was iron.

Human blood.

The rush for Lance turned down several notches in intensity when I entered an "alley" between two buildings, of sorts. Sounds of rapid gunfire became numb to my ears as my mind filtered them out. A left… A right. Had it not been for the muzzle flash and the intense spotlights, even I would have had a hard time navigating.

I briefly wondered if all the blood on me would attract a mutant or two to trap me, although I'd survived enough attempts of assassination by sandwiching enough times to developed a counter-attack. Eventually, after being lost for a minute, I turned on my earth senses to find the gasoline again.

There, to my right. The wet ground had dampened them, but I could still locate certain things with the ability. I ran at a pace slow enough that I could react if a certain enemy was to be spotted, black boots splashing in the equally dark pavement.

I leaned through a field of battle, and seeing three grey-uniforms on the ground, each with a wide hole through them, I knew Lance had been here. They didn't have faces of shock… so… ambush, I would say. The kid was probably trying to get in. It pained me to think about my brother killing three people, but these were no fucking ordinary, innocent people. These men attacked a village of people who just wanted to settle. I stalked through the rows of transports, letting Kronos hang in my hands in sickle form, so I would have decent space to work with.

" _A245."_

That was all she would say. Tanya was one of two that had joined us on the way to establish the settlement, and I never heard much from her. After all, my job was to protect them, not make friends I'd regret not saving. A245.

"Hey, Tanya," I would say. "How you holding up?"

The woman looked up at me with a set of lifeless eyes. "A245." She would always say.

Then I would sigh to myself for even trying in the first place, and wonder what had happened to the poor thing.

John later told me that her fiancée got crushed into paste under the wheels of an armoured Humvee.

Well, this was it. The truck. On its rear, four perfectly printed white letters: A245. Guess this was it, the one that crushed him. Still can't remember the guy's name, for gods' sake, maybe i should start feeling bad. Never mind, not like it was going to matter once we destroyed this place- hopefully the last of troubles from our military friends.

I heard voices, talking against the sound of rushing liquid. The smell of gas stung my nose, which meant Lance had actually decided to open a tank for one of his grenades. If I didn't know he was my brother, there would have been no doubt now. Only one other person would do something so stupid, and that was me. Guess we sons of Poseidon are crazier than given credit for.

"You know, I really hate to do this, kid." That sounded like a stereotypical commander, if I ever heard one. Which meant Lance hadn't finished his part of the plan. Even worse, he was caught.

"But this is curtains for you." My heart grew cold with realization. I rounded the corner as fast as I could.

 _BANG!_

Time slowed as I watched the bullet fly from the gun, right for Lance. My body froze and I could only watch as Lance fell back, his chest sprouting red.

Red.

Red.

Red. Red. Red red red. Red red red redred redredredredredREDREDRED!

I'd completely lost it, he would tell one that shot Lance, I conjured a ball of water and knocked him right into the tank of gas. Something inside me shattered, just like the revelation with poison. My powers over water rushed forth like a tidal wave, whatever rainwater that had remained on the ground rising to my call. No one fucks with demigods while I'm still breathing.

And no one gets to live if they kill a demigod.

All around the base, men, women, and monsters found themselves targeted by the very water beneath their feet. Rain drops formed pressurized shotgun blasts that tore apart whatever wasn't covered in armor or bone. Remember how in my first volume told that hitting the water fast enough was like hitting concrete? Hundreds of thousands of bullet spheres came upon them, and I was barely aware of any of it.

I couldn't tell the shapes of soldier and monster apart as the onslaught continued. It was sickeningly reminiscent of the first time I'd piloted a machine gun, hundreds of rough shapes, downed with three, downed with four. I felt like I had broken. I had lost Annabeth, my mom, camp half-blood, camp Jupiter. I failed them all. I had lost almost an _entire_ settlement, my sole responsibility. Now, I lost a brother I didn't even know I had before. You think I was throwing a temper tantrum? Doesn't matter, I thought i'd deserved a little let-loose after this… fucking thing.

As the number of warm, moving spots of water dwindled rapidly, I moved on to the buildings. They'd already been torn with hundreds of holes, but now? I concentrated a mass burst of several hundred on the steel beams of a tall building, and the structure's very core shook and fell. Any vehicle I saw became bent, twisted, and swiss cheese. My stomach twisted into knots so much that there was an epic moment of release; of break. I'd broken past it.

And despite the slight tire, I felt more than ready to continue.

 **Lance**

The first thing I saw was white.

Like, there was nothing else.

Just white.

Everywhere.

I sat up, grunting in pain as my body ached. Wait, wasn't I somewhere before? I looked around, trying to find out where I was. "Oh good! You're awake!" I heard a rather chipper someone blurt.

I looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. All I saw was, you guessed it, white.

My legs were starting to numb and fall asleep, so I decided if I was going to deal with something weird, I'd might as well face it standing. My legs felt like jelly as I pushed myself to stand.

Once I was on my feet, I once again searched for the voice. Honestly, I had no idea where I was or what I was doing. All I knew for certain was that my heart ached. Not metaphorically, like going through a bad relationship, but literally, like it had been punched. I moved my hand to try and massage the pain away, but as soon as I touched my chest, I felt something, warm and sticky, stain my fingers.

I looked, and found a giant red splotch over my heart. I brought my fingers closer. There was a red liquid that clung to them. It had an iron-y smell to it, and was still very warm. _Wait a minute, I remember now_ , I thought. Yeah, it was coming back to me.

My… brother(?) and I were attacking… a place. No, a base. Yeah, it was a base. A.. military base?

We were attacking, and I had rocks. No, bombs. Wait, uh… pineapples? No, bombs! Yes bombs! And I was planting them and then…. Oh, right.

I was shot.

Honestly, I thought it would hurt more. I mean, it still hurt like a bitch (seriously, try getting punched in the heart. Hurts.) but it didn't feel like I was shot.

"Hello?" I called out into the expansive whiteness. I guess this was the afterlife? I'm not sure how things worked now since the gods fell, but if I could escape you can damn sure bet I would try.

"Oh good, you finally figured it out!" the chipper voice from earlier called out once again. I turned as quickly as I could, finally catching sight of the voice's source, and at the same time making myself dizzy. Who knew you could get dizzy even when dead?

"Whoa there, don't want you dying on me, now," the voice chided. I could hear a chuckle coming from the person. Why did they sound so familiar? "Who knew you could be so reckless?" asked the voice. I felt someone grab hold of me and steady me enough to sit me down in a chair… one that obviously wasn't there a few seconds ago.

It felt comfortable, the chair. The white room didn't look it, but it felt like it was spinning. The person sat across from me, behind a large ornate wooden desk. "Now, comfortable?" he asked. It was most definitely a he. And seriously, why did he sound so damn familiar?

I heard a snap, and as I was trying to process why they were snapping when the room shifted. No longer was it a large expanse of white. With my vision returning to normal, I could see it was an office. Nice one, too. Oaken floors, one side of the room was just straight glass overlooking a snow-covered town. As I looked out the window, I realized more of the flying machines from my earlier dream were here.

I looked to the person at the desk, finally able to make out what they looked like, and why they sounded so familiar.

"So, how are things?" I asked… myself. Literally. The person sitting across from me… was me. Only, not me. I mean, almost everything looked the same: the skin, the hair, the teeth, even the bullet wound. But the eyes… they were wrong. For starters, they were red. They reminded me of a cat's eye, you know, how they have that huge slit going down the middle as if someone had carved right down the middle.

"Who… are you?" I know I said it was just me, but after dealing with gods for so long you sort of question whatever's in front of you whenever it seems wrong. He (I'm going to call the other me as 'he' because my head already hurts, and not from dying) grinned and said, "I"m you! Well, sort of you. The better you!" He sounded like he was going for a sales pitch.

"What?" I asked, still trying to wrap my head around _two_ mes.

He stood up from his desk and walked around, leaning on the front and crossing his arms, just like a salesman. "You see, I'm you, but at the same time I'm not. Integrated if you really want to think about it." He smiled at me as if he were closing the deal. "You see, I'm the one thing that can make you better."

"Better? How do you mean better? And where are we?" I gestured to the room around us.

"You like? It's actually ours, from the future anyway. Oh, spoilers!" He shushed me before continuing. "When you were tied up in that den, those veins weren't just pumping liquid into you. They were pumping _me_."

I looked right into his eyes, and he had the same look as Hermes whenever he was going to play a trick on the Myrmidons. "So… you are… what, exactly?" He made himself sound ominous, but I had no idea who or what he was supposed to be.

He didn't expect that apparently. "You- you're serious? You have no idea who I am? You- you can't be serious! You should know _exactly_ who I am!" He sounded rather flustered. He saw that I was serious, and sighed. "Didn't they teach you anything on Olympus? Okay- okay. Let's play a game then. I'll give you just one hint and you have to figure out who I am from that hit. Sound good?" That did not sound good, but I couldn't speak over him as he said, "Great! Alright. Now, you're hint is this. Who was the only monster that nearly destroyed Olympus?"

If this was the afterlife, I was sure I was in Hell. "Typhon," I whispered, hoping that it wasn't true, that this was just some fever dream while I was dead.

"Ding ding ding! Let the boy have his prize! You guessed right, little demigod!"

How was this possible? Typhon had been destroyed after the Kronos War. The gods put him down for good… didn't they?

"Oh, come on now. I'm not that bad!" Typhon said across from me. He was back in his chair, balancing a pencil on his upper lip. "Once you get to know me, I'm sure we'll make fine partners." The way he said partners made me think it would be more like a puppet and a master, and I had a fairly good idea which Typhon (good gods) wanted to be.

He seemed to read my thoughts, and stated, "You can stop worrying about me trying to take over. I was serious about being an integrated part. Your brother, bastard that he is, interrupted my gestation process by a full two years.

Two. Years.

I was only about halfway done when he so rudely interrupted me. Now I'm… different. I mean, it's not bad. I actually enjoy a nice change of pace. Back then it was always tromping and stomping around, scaring gods, devouring mortals, the usual."

The way he talked about doing all that sounded no different than Percy talking about the day's training or Gwen talking about the weather. "Why me?" I had to know. Why was I the one that drew the short straw to receive Typhon. Better yet, why in Hades was Typhon being put into someone in the first place?

"Because of Nyx," he replied, again as if he were reading my thoughts. "You see, by the time the war actually got around, Nyx was stronger than led to believe. She was stronger than the Gaea, she was stronger than Tartarus, hell I'd wager she was even stronger than Chaos herself. That whole 'Gaea ending the world thing?' That was Nyx using just a little of her power to push things along. Everything else: the monsters, the black goop pumping in your veins, even Luna breaking, those were all her."

"You see, Nyx knew you humans were a bunch of persistent little bastards, and could survive just about anything, so she decided to make her own, final performance. Her swan song. She actually had me brought back to Tartarus to be the first and most crucial step in her plan. I was to be placed within the body of a demigod, and gestate for a few years, slowly taking over as the demigod's body would slowly accommodate my power, before I would be free to join the world, infiltrate every last settlement you humans would build, and basically become a Trojan horse, only instead of soldiers, I would bring with me the monsters she made from her own blood and power. And not just any demigod would do. Nyx needed a magical user strong enough to handle initial contact with my power, otherwise they'd burst like a balloon."

My body felt cold, and not from the blood loss. No, I felt cold because from the start I was doomed. Even before I had been sent on a mission, even before I was trained by the Myrmidons, even before I was brought to Olympus, I was nothing but a means to an end. I had been personally selected by Nyx to be her little puppet.

I didn't feel honored. In fact, I felt glad Percy managed to throw her plans to the sharks. At least I could give the idea of Nyx the finger as I thought of her eternal frustration of her ultimate plan, her cumulative work to end all humanity once and for all, had the rug pulled from under it by Percy. _Take that you stuck up bitch,_ I mentally cursed at Nyx. If she was still alive, even by some smidge of a miracle that she had enough conscience to hear and understand me, then I would rest well knowing she couldn't do jack-squat anymore.

"Well I guess that plan went belly-side up, didn't it?" I asked in a condescending tone. You would too, if you suddenly found out that your ultimate enemy had planned to use you as the means to wipe out your kind.

Typhon chuckled, nodding as he went on. "Yes it did. And now, I'm here to discuss with you the ramifications of our new partnership. As much as I love being stuck inside your noodle with my only contact to either you or the outside world being you dying, I'd much rather prefer a more direct solution." He stood up from his chair, leaned on one hand on the desk, and offered me the other. "How about a merger? In return for letting me essentially piggyback on your subconscious out of here and letting me actually see, hear, and feel what you do, you get to use my power."

I looked at his hand. Was Typhon, father to all monsters and the one thing that actually made Zeus wet himself, offering to help me? Not only that, but without asking for more than something to prevent boredom? That was literally too perfect to be true.

I leaned back in my chair. "What's the catch?" I asked.

Typhon's grin was sly, just like George and Martha when they found ways to blackmail me into giving them rats. I didn't like it. It gave me an uneasy feeling, like I shouldn't have asked in the first place. "Well for starters, you won't get every ounce of power I have, not yet anyway. I give you that much and you're as likely to destroy the base as you would have with your little 'secret weapon.' He gave air quotations for the words secret weapon.

I grimaced. That weapon was handcrafted by Hephaestus himself, forged within the fires of Olympus, and infused with the strength of the weapons of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. It was meant to be a weapon strong enough to blast Nyx far enough into the Void to keep her there forever. But it came at a price. 'The ultimate sacrifice for the greater good,' I was told by Zeus. I didn't care, by then I was just ready to find some rest and get away from the Olympians. Paradise, my ass. The gods were anything but on Olympus.

Typhon must have had some mind-reading capabilities because he just began to laugh out of nowhere, a loud, busting laugh like he heard the world's funniest joke.

"Lighten up, champ! You won! You made it out of that place and made gold by finding your brother. Now, you got me… if you agree to the terms." He outstretched his hand once again, leaning over the desk to reach me.

I wasn't going to hesitate. I reached for his hand almost immediately. Before I could shake it, he pulled back. I couldn't tell what look he had since he dropped his eyes to the table, but the sigh gave it away. "Damn it, you really are influencing me. All right, there is one other catch I _might_ have failed to mention."

I sat back in my chair. "Really man? I thought we were having a bonding moment." I couldn't even begin to hide the sarcasm in my voice. I was tired of being told half-truths, and I thought being in a literal Apocalypse would change that. Guess even I lie to myself sometimes.

"Okay, well this last part… is kind of a good news/bad news get up. You see, I told you I was supposed to lead the monsters using you - no offense - against mankind. Well, since we met we've established a sort of connection, kind of like finishing the setup, only without me controlling you. Buuuuuuuut, you won't be able to control my powers… for awhile. And unfortunately - and since I can peep into the future I know exactly what I'm talking about - the only way you could get better at it is to use it over and over. Kind of like one of those muscle things you humans were always prattling on about."

I'll admit, this entire last power thing was sounding completely cliche, like I was in a video game or a show or something and I just got a new power. Great, I mentally sighed. Just another experience to add to the ever growing list of weird things even for demigods. Maybe I should actually write all those things down. Probably make a book or two. Ah, I dunno. Maybe the version for the gods would be a better sell.

Typhon snapped his fingers in front of my face. "Hey hey hey, come on buddy, pay attention." Ass.

"I heard that, but I'll let it slide. Anyhoodle, we got a deal?" This time as soon as he reached his hand out I clasped it, shaking firmly. Typhon smiled. He looked up, like he heard something. "Well, looks like our time is just about up. Got anymore questions before you head back out?"

Oh, I had questions, and I had plenty that I had wanted to ask right then and there… but I had one that I needed to ask most of all. I looked down at my (and I do mean my) bullet wound, and had just one question to ask before I woke up.

"Does this mean I give love a bad name?"

 **Percy**

My anger had long since drained, leaving me feeling exhausted, and I was. Mentally, physically, and spiritually. My brother had died before my eyes. The only other demigod I knew of, and basically the only other person I cared about, was gone. And I once again found myself Alone. Wasn't that just fucking dandy?

Even after my throwdown and power blast, I was still surrounded by monsters and people. The last few surviving humans had managed to barricade themselves in a nearby building, locking - and possibly barricading - the door, and doing whatever they could to keep the monsters out. Meanwhile, I was sitting on my knees in front of Lance.

I didn't cry. Demigods lost the ability to cry after a while. It was a luxury we weren't allowed after we killed enough monsters. The monsters surrounded me on all sides, the flying ones keeping their distance, but they still looked like glorified vultures.

The monsters had formed a circle of gnashing teeth, foaming mouths, and demonic eyes. Even with Kronos I doubted I would survive through this.

Oh well. Guess the others would have to make do without me. I had faith they would.

Still, I wouldn't go down easy. I was prepared to die, but I wasn't going to go out without at least giving one last show. Who knows? Maybe if I killed enough of these things they would actually leave the settlement alone.

My right hand grew heavier as the familiar scythe of my grandfather reformed in my hand. It hummed with energy, probably excitement if I had to guess. Guess even the scythe knew.

My legs moved on their own, pushing back to stand up. I wasn't scared… I was relieved. Relieved that soon I'd be with Annabeth again. Soon I'd be back with Mom, and Paul, and… her.

I was ready to charge, to make my final stand, when I heard a groaning noise. I looked back to see that bastard who shot my brother, and he was still alive. "You son of a bitch," I growled. I may have been ready to die, but there wasn't any way I was going to let this asshole off without consequences.

He made to crawl away, I'd assume he was desperate to try and escape… even if he was crawling right for a monster mob. He didn't get far before I grabbed him by the leg and dragged him back.

"You're not going anywhere," I told him. Kronos was just a few inches away from his chest, in full scythe form. Even the slightest touch and this man would be barbeque in a matter of seconds, and then just dust in the wind after that. But I'd have my fun first, even if it meant getting my hands dirty. Kronos found itself a temporary sheathe in the ground, its blade buried about halfway up in dirt.

I had one hand grabbing his shirt to lift him up and the other was wrapped around his throat. He was pale, and judging by that wound on his shoulder he'd been steadily bleeding for minutes now. The guy didn't even have enough strength to look directly at me.

Still, that didn't mean I couldn't have fun. I shook him a bit, just to get his attention. His half-lidded eyes managed to look in my direction. He didn't have much time left.

"Hope you believe in a God," I said. "Because there's no afterlife, everything just goes black." Granted, I was lying as far as I knew. My previous experiences with the afterlife (nothing permanent, personally) had told me that there would always be a place, because otherwise we'd… have… ghosts. Oh, shit. Annabeth. Was she actually a spirit, and not me losing my mind? No, bad Percy. Deep thoughts later. Fun torture time, now.

The man sputtered weakly, drawing ragged breaths as he held on to life. Poor bastard should try to be offing himself so he wouldn't have to deal with me. Oh well.

My hand continued to squeeze down on his throat, further stopping him from breathing the smallest amounts of air possible. I didn't squeeze too long because I didn't want to kill him yet, nor did I want him to blackout.

Before either happened, I dropped him. I was fully aware, at that point, that the monsters had stopped growling and snarling and instead watched silently, save for the occasional beating of wings from overhead as even the birds made lazy circles to watch.

I was brought back to the commander by another severe grunt from him. His throat already had my handprint on it. He coughed and sputtered, gasping weakly for breath. He was on his last leg, and I was about to leg sweep his sorry ass.

I grabbed Kronos, easily ripping it from the ground, and strode over to the meat sack called a human. The holy/unholy blade glinted in the cracked moonlight. It was beautiful, the way the blade was so slick and clean, even if it would be stained by blood in a few minutes. It was almost a shame to have to dirty it so horribly. Almost.

I brought up Kronos, twisting to the point would pierce his heart and rip him in two when I pulled down. My arms tensed, my legs stood fast against the ground. This was it.

I had just started to bring the blade down, ready to slice my prey apart, when - and I shit you not - _someone_ grabbed the commander by the collar and tossed him into the air, right for the large birds. My eyes never left the man, watching with no small amount of glee as the birds crowded around him in the sky, each taking their own souvenir of the kill. I heard his scream even all the way from down here. It was music, my friends.

Kronos was still raised when I looked from the eviscerated base commander to the one person I never thought I'd see again.

"Oh my gods… Lance?" Before me stood my brother, a large red stain on his clothes, but standing before me, looking no worse for wear. I would have hugged him, possibly even kissed him on the cheek, had it not been for his eyes. His shiteating grin was still there, full of excitement… but his eyes. They weren't his. This wasn't Lance.

Kronos was at the ready faster than even I could blink. "Who are you?" I questioned, keeping myself at the ready. The bird monsters still circled overhead. None of the other monsters made a move to try and kill me now. They were…. Bowing? Wait, hold the flipping phone!

 _Bowing_? To _Lance?_ Okay, now I know some serious shit had to have happened when I was trying to kill that man. Lance had been dead… what? Five minutes? Did something happen in the last five minutes I wasn't aware of? Seriously? What is this bullshit?

He didn't answer. Instead, he walked right up to the nearest wolf mutant. No joke. He was literally in front of it, looking at it as it kneeled. Then, he raised his hand, pet… _PET_ , the damned thing, before it exploded. Honestly, I've seen some weird things happen, even by _gods'_ standards. This just took the entire bakery, nevermind the cake.

Nothing was said. He just looked at every single one of the other monsters, and they just… left. No monsters trying to maul me on their way out. No monsters turning around and going _PSYCHE!_ Not even a passing glance from them as they left. It was like watching the student body at Goode shuffle out of the auditorium.

I turned back to Lance, hoping that I'd get some sort of information, but he just winked at me. What, did he think I'd want this as some sort of surprise party? Demigods don't just cause entire monster armies to shuffle away!

Not a moment later, he dropped again. Fell right onto his back. I would have felt bad, downright terrible even, but my brother just came back alive to send away a bunch of monsters? He didn't even say 'Hi, Percy!' or 'Man, dying sucked.' Nope, just went right back to laying down on the ground.

I had to give my brain a couple of minutes to at least processed that this just happened. Believing it was an entirely different story altogether, but at least noting it happened was… good enough.

Ten minutes passed (thank you Kronos) before I moved to Lance's side. He hadn't woken up since then, but at the very least he was breathing. "Oh thank the-"

"SHOT THROUGH THE HEART!" Lance shouted, bouncing up like some sort of springboard. I can tell you that two things happened at that moment. The first, and I'm not ashamed to admit this, was I screamed. Loud. I wasn't expecting my brother to wake up so soon, and I really didn't expect him to wake up singing the opening chorus to Bon Jovi.

The second was that I punched Lance in the gut. It was a reflex I had developed after dealing with monsters jump-scaring me. The effect was immediate. "Ow!" shouted Lance. "What was that for?"

"That? THAT? That was for dying on me, coming back just to send the mutants away, and then come back _again_ singing Bon Jovi!" I shouted back. Damn, this was fucking great! Lance was still rubbing his stomach, no doubt feeling for his intestines, before I pulled him in for a hug. Good gods, I was getting sappy.

Lance was confused at first, which made me flinch just a little. "Uh, Percy? What are you doing?"

"I'm hugging you," I mumbled, just wanting a few moments to myself. Now don't go thinking that this was me trying to make sure he didn't leave me… again. No, this was me making sure he was real, and not some hallucination I had come up with. He was real, thank goodness. "Come on," I said, standing up. I offered him a hand and said, "Let's go back."

 **A/N:**

 **Goodsir: Huh, the magical resurrection was too early. It doesn't follow the standard rules of a hero's journey! *cries* *breaks down* You can't do this to me! What do I do?**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: *singing an out of tune version of the Hallelujah Chorus* Since when are we standard?! WE LIVE FOR THE INSANE! Lance! Bring me my buttermilk biscuits! I wish to teach Goodsir the element of happiness!**

 **Lance: How about no.**

 **Goodsir: Yeah, sounds about right. Just like how you are actually an alternate reality version of Lance-17239475 from dimension of the same name, brought here so we could question you and therefore avoid interference to the Lance we are currently telling the story of.**

 **Mr.P3pp3r: LIES AND SLANDER! You have no proof! Everyone! Review and tell Goodsir he was** _ **lied to.**_ **Do it! FOR ME! FOR THE PEPPERS OF THE WORLD! Oh, wait. Caps Lock was on. Yay!**

 **Goodsir: I can't handle this cringe anymore. I need to take my pills now. Anyways, REVIEW!**

 **Mr.P3pp3r : Until next time: DEUCE!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Percy**

By the return of sunlight, we were already a well ways off on our journey back to base. We travelled on an unharmed jeep, its keys jammed in but not started when we found it. I carried what must have been a platoon's worth of weaponry and ammunition, all picked from the dead bodies of the soldiers. As I finished flipping over the last grey-uniformed soldier, Lance pointed out something interesting- they had no rank. Just numbers and letters, and their names, printed in black ink.

After we picked everything we could carry, Lance and I left the base alone, hopefully to be never touched again… unless for looting.

Back to the present, the ride was pretty uneventful. Lance slept in the passenger seat while I drove. No mutants attacked us, though that may have been because I had gone out of my way to maybe run over a couple… dozen. Look, I never got to drive one of these before let alone run over monsters in one! Cut me some slack!

Maybe Nat would be angry about all the black sludge on the car… Nah, I'll clean it myself. Ain't got this water power for no reason, after all.

But yeah, anyway… we rode back in silence. The radio worked, but I had no idea what stations actually had anything, if there were any radio stations at all. And unfortunately nearly all the other hardware was destroyed in Lance's... "stress release." Whatever happened to him after his injury- oh yeah… uh, forgot to mention that, didn't I? Really stepped up his game. He was less reserved than before, not shy about using more magic (he had fun parking everything by the munitions depot then blowing it sky high), and had brought out something in him I hadn't seen before. It was like he had suddenly become more me. I guess that experience really brings out the inner demigod. I mean, I wouldn't know to be honest, but I'm not one to judge.

Before long, we were back at the front gate. Now you have to remember, cars weren't silent in general (especially diesel ones), and this jeep was even less conspicuous than most cars. Imagine an eight-wheeler-sounding engine, but in a four-wheeler car. So they knew we were coming before we were coming.

I had stopped about fifteen feet from the gate, because I was a nice guy and wanted them to take in the fact we now had another vehicle to call our own… and they had their weapons trained on us. Maybe they thought the soldiers captured us and threatened us to drive their car back here so they could ambush the settlement? Who knows what was on the minds of the 60 survivors.

"Right, let's get this over with," I mumbled as I rolled down the window. Putting on my best Mark Walhberg impersonation, I popped my head out the window, waving at the group and shouting,

"'Ey! I busted my bualls hea for dis thing! Mind givin' me a han?" Granted, I was never good at impersonations, especially when it came to Boston accents. Despite living in New York, I only ever tried to match a Boston accent when they were in the movies.

My little performance was met with confused faces and partially lowered guns. I sighed again, and this time in my regular voice said,

"Right. Alright, mind letting us in? I've got presents!" Now that got some attention. Everyone stepped aside as I rolled through, flashing the peace sign at a couple of my remaining trainees. Once through, everyone piled in and shut the gates. No one flocked to the jeep, instead opting to sit and look, seemingly indifferent to it all. Was this trauma or whatever?

I stepped out of the car in the most _suave_ way I could imagine, my arms out like I was looking for a hug.

"What," I said. "We killed the military, bitches!"

...

There was a static silence where everyone looked at us with a raised eyebrow impassively, as if unimpressed. Oh gods, what did I do wrong this time...

A roar! The sixty or so of our settlement cheered in approval, high-fiving and yelling slogans, jumping around and popping out their reserved beers.

Mike, one of the scavengers, rode with the wave of cheering crowd that was coming my way and gave me a hard punch in the shoulder..

"Son of a bitch, Jackson!" The Korean yelled happily.

I smiled.

Amidst all the celebration, in between the little 'gang' of leaders as I like to call it looked overall impressed. Among them was Gwen. The woman looked away and sighed. "You know what," She muttered. "I'm not even mad."

They eventually formed a mob of utter anarchy, throwing their guns and swords into the air and blasting music- from a car. I wasn't sure when I'd last heard music, but damn, it was great, even if electronic wasn't exactly my rig. Someone flung me a bottle that smelled a little strange, and Lance was nowhere to be seen.

John wiggled his way through the forty or so celebrating, and came up to me.

"Hey," I asked. "What's this?"

"Oh, the bottle? It's gin." He said. Before I could respond (or drink), he motioned me to the tent.

I followed him in, taking a quick swig before anyone could interrupt me. In the tent, I saw John, Gwen, Adam, and Bran. Three out of the four were smiling. I'll let you guess who wasn't.

"You little fucker, Jackson," Bran and drawled, grinning as far as his face would allow.

"You boys actually managed to pull it off." I took another swig, enjoying the buzz in my head. It was nice to not actually worry about something life threatening for a change, now that those military bastards were gone.

Bran clapped me on the back.

"I don't know how you two did it, but you did it." Gwen, despite being the Debbie Downer of the group did in fact give a little smile - just for a split second - before going back to normal. But I saw. I may have had gin running through me at the moment, and the adrenaline rush was finally wearing off, but I saw.

"Ah, Gwen! I saw that!" She jumped a little and looked at me as if I were crazy. "Saw what?" Rather than play her game, I grinned, laughed, and took another swig of the gin. Damn, this stuff was good!

We passed around the bottle for awhile longer, letting the reality that we had actually pulled out on top finally hit us. We sang, we cheered, Gwen suggested we throw a party for a day to celebrate. I thought it was a good idea. However, all good things must come to an end. As we sat around the tent, letting the buzz wear off of us, I decided to do…

Nothing.

No, no, brain, don't think about Annabeth again. Never is it a good time to think about the past.

After that attack, we only had about seven medics, with four on staff at all times. We kept the others on call but usually just let them chill out. However, despite there being only a couple of wounded from training or scouting expeditions, all nine medics were there, crowded around a table.

"Damn it!" I heard Lance call out from there direction. OOoooh shit. Shit! I completely forgot all about Lance's wound! I pushed my way through the medic's worming my way to the bed Lance was shouting and cursing from.

He was sitting up, arms crossed and looking none too happy to be there. His eyes widened when he saw me. "Percy! Finally! Can you tell everyone I'm _fine_?"

Sherry (let's just call her that until her name comes back to me) had wormed her way to my side. "You are not fine! You've been shot!"

Lance rolled his eyes and sighed. I'd have thought he would remove his shirt to show everyone he wasn't injured. Honestly, it wouldn't be the first time we've come here with large bloody spots on our clothes.

One of the medics had moved to try and pry off his top, but Lance struggled and wriggled, keeping him from doing so.

Wait, hold now. Okay, I think I know why he didn't want to show them. He'd been shot, right through the heart, and had died. Then he had come back to life. I didn't even think to check and see if there was a wound there anymore. Usually magic heals everything, even the scar if given enough time. Did Lance even have a scar?

"If we don't treat that wound it'll get infected," the nurse growled, trying once again to remove Lance's top. "And I'm telling you I wasn't shot! That's not even my blood!" Wow, that… was actually a halfway decent lie. I mean, I saw him get shot, but he could pass that off as someone else that was shot and fell onto him.

The others weren't buying it, though. One of the younger medics - Jack - turned to Sherry and said, "Shylah," Welp, I was wrong both times, "he won't let anyone near him. We've tried going all at once but it's like he's coated in vaseline."

Lance gave the man a sideways glance before glancing to me. I could see his desperation, even though he still scowled at anyone that tried to come near him. Right, guess it was time for me to 'big brother' this. "Alright. Lance, come on. We're heading back to my place." His smile practically screamed 'Thank You!' and he shimmied himself off the bed and through the crowd of medics. Shylah glowered at me. "He needs to be treated! I've seen bullet wounds before. His clothes have the typical entry and exits marks of a bullet, and I know for a fact that someone didn't bleed on him."

I met her gaze with an even 'I don't give a damn' half-lidded look. "And that's why I'm going to treat him. I've dealt with plenty of wounds, believe me. He'll be fine. Besides, Lance is still a bit shy." Not the greatest lie, but still not too far off. He was friendly enough to most people, but he didn't actively go out of his way to meet everyone. I just planted the idea he was just being a teenager, and everyone else went from there.

Shylah opened her mouth to argue, but I continued, "He's only trying to be brave for everyone else. He's been through worse, remember?" Shylah grimaced, obviously remembering how sickly Lance was when he first joined. Being one of the first with medical expertise to join us, we all had a little respect for her. Still, she made her worries known. "I'd rather he'd be embarrassed and alive than prideful and dead. We've lost too many good people, Percy. I don't want to lose anyone else, especially to something we can heal."

"Don't worry. Lance's a fast healer. He'll be back to normal in no time." That, and he had already died so…

A second later I was strolling back to my cabin, waving occasionally to anyone that passed by. I was feeling in a good mood, so me being a little cheerful wasn't too much. Granted, we'd just got a kill count that was probably in the high double digits, but still we got what was owed to us.

Lance had already made himself comfortable on the couch, stretched out and turned on his side. "So, feel like explaining yet?" I asked. Lance had only been revived for about a couple of hours now, but he wasn't willing to share what he saw. He looked pretty shaken up about it when he first came back, baring his two second Bon Jovi cover.

He sighed, and repeated what he said on the ride home. "No, and I probably won't. If I do, you'll be the first person I come to." And just like that he was asleep. No, seriously. Out like a light. Which sucked for me because trying to wake him was like trying to wake the dead. And believe me, I've already tried singing 'Shot through the heart.'

I thought about trying to find the potential wound, but held back. I'd seen not just demigod, but pure mortal survive wounds as if they'd been blessed by a miracle. It was best to… yeah, I should be more happy about it. With that solved, I went to my fridge, and decided to treat myself to a nice can of chili. Unwarmed chili may have sucked to most people, but A) The world ended so that argument is bust, B) Being a demigod meant you take what you could get, cold chili or no, and C) Despite the fact we had a good setup here we still didn't have a working microwave to heat things with and I'll be damned before I start a fire in my own house for chili.

So I sat there in silence, munching on cold chili as I let myself relax. Two months ago, if someone told me I and Lance would go and destroy an entire base _by ourselves_ , Lance dies and gets resurrected, and then somehow we manage to scare off an army of monsters, I would have thought you were higher than a kite. I guess anything really is possible. On the bright side, and this is me just thinking here so no jinxing, I have yet to see any Greek or Roman monsters crawling about. Granted there were some really weird black monster hybrids at the start there, but I haven't seen them. I haven't even heard rumors about them. Well, at least that's one problem I'll never have to face again. I'd rather not deal with Typhon a second time.

 **Lance**

Typhon sneezed from behind his desk. He sniffed and wiped the snot away. "I think someone's bad mouthing me out there," mumbled Typhon. I sat across from him, still trying to understand how the father to all monsters, the beast that destroyed an entire mountain, and the only being to scare Zeus to the point of wetting himself, was sitting across from me as if we were in a business meeting.

"Well, we are," Typhon suddenly spoke, drawing me from my thoughts. Damn, I forgot about that. "You'll get used to it," he said again, nonchalantly picking his nose. Gross. "Hey, it's not like I get a lot of reception in here!" Typhon complained, pointing at a TV in the corner with nothing but static on its screen.

Still, he didn't have to be such an asshole and read my thoughts. "That's harsh," he cried, feigning being hurt. Seriously, stop. "What are you gonna do?" For starters I'm- "Use your words," Typhon mocked, leaning back in his chair. Alright, Lance. Deep breath.

"So why exactly did you call me here?" I asked, hoping to steer the conversation back into topics that wouldn't give me a migraine. "Ah, right. I'm here to show you your dreams."

…

"What?" I asked, plaintively.

"Yeah! You see, since we're both heavily influenced by magic, and since we're literally together on this one, I've been made privy to your magical dreams." That totally wasn't at all creepy. "Shut up. It's not. Think of it as me getting a sneak peek to make sense of things for you! That way you won't have to focus too much and get distracted, and possibly killed _again_ , out there. Despite what you may think I don't enjoy dying, and bringing us back from death really took a toll on me. That was your one freebie."

"My freebie?" I asked, tilting my head to the side in confusion. The way Typhon made it sound, it was like he took a hit for me. "In a manner of speaking, yes." he stated, lounging back in his chair.

Right, forgot he could still read my mind. "So, what does that mean then?"

"Simple. From now on, everytime you die and I have to bring us back to life I re-energize myself from your magical reserves. It'll make you tired and will definitely hurt like hell, but at least you get life's Konami Code. Congrats!" Typhon even conjured up a party horn to blow in mock celebration. I didn't understand the analogy, but I was certain he was referencing my… our?... whatever - our situation of being immune to permanent death. I'd heard of such tales from the Myrmidons, how Thanatos sometimes played favorites and pulled strings for certain mortals. Why? I don't know. I never really had an opportunity to question the god of death, and I guess now I never will. Shame.

"Gods are overrated." He snapped.

Oh well. "Right, enough about that," Typhon drawled. He seemed tired, and quite possibly bored. "Let's move on to something more exciting!" Yes, he was definitely bored. "So, want to see your newest dream?" Seeing as how I was probably still asleep - and would remain so for the time being - I shrugged, deciding to go along with it. Why not?

Typhon's grin immediately gave me a horrible feeling, but before I could protest the scene changed. The office's walls melted away, shaping and molding itself into something else entirely.

It was the castle from my previous dream, the one I had seen from the airship.

" _Uh… this is some different time."_ A muffled voice belonging to Typhon rang out.

So, the future then?

" _Well, not exactly, it's a different time period."_

"And that's the future, right?" I spoke out loud.

" _What? Oh… Ok. Whatever."_

I was standing in the courtyard. There was no one else there. "Uh, Typhon? What's going on?" I asked aloud. Beside the fact that there was no one around, it was actually kind of nice out. Clear sky, also blue, with the occasional bird chirp. It reminded me of the stories I heard about Elysium.

" _You're dreaming, remember? And I might be the father of everything that tried to eat you, but I can't really see into the future. If I did, you think I would have been beaten by Zeus?"_

Fair point.

" _Thank you. But now let's see where this dream goes."_

A second after that I heard the crunching sound of someone eating popcorn.

"Are you really eating popcorn, right now"? His response was to eat it even louder. Great, I have to live through my dreams and he's watching it like a movie.

" _So what happens first?"_ Typhon asked, his already muffled voice being muffled even further with food. Before I could retort that I didn't know, I heard something breathing heavy behind me. It was probably huge, considering how heavy the breathing sounded. Slowly I turned. Normally I wouldn't have had much trouble seeing what was behind me, but with Typhon now in my head I had even less certainty in my dreams, nevermind my waking moments.

The first thing I saw was black. What was black exactly, I couldn't say. The next thing I saw was the damned thing was _enormous_. I had to strain my neck a little just to see its head. I saw scaled the higher I went. Scales brought three monsters to mind with the size. The first was a drakon, and I was pretty sure with the mutants I wouldn't be surprised if there was a winged drakon.

The next creature that came to mind was an actual dragon. It had the size for one, and its head was angular like an arrowhead, but a bit broad around the snout. I was reminded of the Welsh dragons from European tales. I never saw one in real life, but I saw plenty of tapestries of them around Athena's loom.

The last monster I was reminded of was of the ancient dragon that called itself Bahamut. From what the Myrmidons said of her, she was a force of destruction. She had long since faded by the time I was 'brought in' but some of the older Myrmidons had scars from the one time they crossed paths.

I leaned to the side, trying to look for any signs for its identity. But as I leaned, so too did the dragon. Its gargantuan neck shook with muscle and sinew as it mirrored me.

" _As awesome as this looks, what's got you connected to this dragon?_ " Typhon's voice called out.

"I... have absolutely no idea."

No sooner had I spoken did the scene change again. The school had given way to… a ballroom? And there were people here! Songs were playing in the background, everyone had dressed up, and it seemed like everyone was having a good time. I turned around, trying to discern the reason I was here.

However, a brief glimpse of crimson caught my eye. I looked down, and saw I was no longer in my own clothes. I had been given a new wardrobe: a crimson duster, ornate in design yet oddly practical in armor design - with a durable leather coating around the chest and shoulders, a silken shirt (I never thought I would enjoy the touch of slik, but apparently I do), dark pants that felt rather like jeans but much smoother, and - the most odd piece of this ensemble - iron boots.

To be honest, I felt as if I were pretending to be a rogue from medieval times more than attending a party. Others seemed to think so, too. I received a few confused stares from nearby dancers, but no second glances. I began to make my way through the crowd, no actual destination in mind. I was hoping to speed along the dream, to try and coerce its meaning. As I walked the crowd became more and more dense. Brief glimpses entered my vision as I walked through the blurring faces. Gold, red, white, black, green, blue. Colors that lasted for but a moment.

I was close to the other end of the hall. A gust of cold air rushed through me, and I knew this would lead to outside, and perhaps the meaning of my dream.

Just before I could see the door, I had accidentally bumped into someone, and for a moment I saw their eyes. Bright yellow, like a snakes. That was all I saw before once again the dream shifted.

The ballroom faded away, making room for a vast, barren wasteland. The sky was a permanent shade of crimson… though how I knew this was permanent I could not understand. The only thing for as far as the eye could see was dust. It was a clayish brown and there were plateaus and mountains and huge pits dotted the landscape.

It reminded me of the Fields of Eidolon, a mythical place from a story told by the Myrmidons about pantheons of old. It was a decisive battle from two pantheons, both from countries long since lost to Time. The battle had culminated in an epic showdown that scarred the lands and created the Sahara. At least, that's what the Myrmidons point is, this reminded me of that battleground, as if the earth being scarred due to a devastating battle.

The winds rushed forth with fury and sting, blasting me with a thousand knives of sand. I held fast, covering my face with my arms (and pleased to find I was once again back in my old clothes) to weather this storm. The winds showed no sign of ceasing, so I began to walk. I know, I've done this before but I had to do something. Demigods weren't the greatest at remaining still.

I walked through the barren wasteland, keeping one arm in front of my eyes to try and keep most of the sand from hitting me directly. Pits that had the ground ripped from them, jagged scars digging through the sides of mountainous spires of rock, even an overhanging dark cloud that looked too much like smoke to be a coincidence.

What had happened here, I wondered. It was like two gods had lost their temper and fought it out. " _Think it might have been monsters, instead?"_ Typhon asked, his voice sounding more clear than before.

The thought made sense, seeing as how both gods and monsters had little care about the land when they fought. Whatever caused this, it was strong. I could feel its power even in a dream, and I was barely an amateur magic-wise.

The longer I walked, the more the land began to take on a more nightmarish aspect. The crimson sky had become darker as I walked. The land looked edged, like crags and spires had been forcefully pushed from the earth. Dark pools just like the nests bubbled across the land.

My foot had landed on a loose patch of dirt, and the next thing I knew I went tumbling down a rather painful hill. Sharp pebbles and dust like sandpaper dug into my skin, searing pain into every part of my body, yet… I didn't cry out.

No… actually, that's not it. I couldn't cry out. My mouth refused to open, no matter how much I wanted to scream and cry out in pain.

After five, slow, agonizing minutes of falling I finally stopped. I lay there at the bottom, unable to move. Gravity had me pinned (damnit!) and I couldn't move. As I lay there I smelt fires off in the distance, and at once I saw visions. Visions of war. Visions of monsters and people fighting.

Visions of death.

They went as fast as they came. Images flashed through my eyes so fast I could only register split-second flashes. Gods, it was like watching one of Apollo's self-embracing movies at twenty times faster than average (which would have been a blessing back then).

The dream began to fade, its edges slowly being devoured by darkness. It slowly consumed my vision, compressing the flashing images in tighter and tighter until they were practically colors. Just before the dream ended, I saw something that would end my dreams for years to come.

Silver eyes.

 **Percy**

I woke up to Lance falling off the couch in a loud thud. Well, wasn't that loud, but I forgot to turn off my earth sense before going to sleep. Anyways, it was just getting dark and I was startled like a damn sardine in tuna mating season. I wanted to say that I was fully armed and prepared, but the line of drool running down the left side of my mouth reminded me that maybe I overestimated my chances of surviving an overnight assassination.

What I do remember was that, eventually, I was in the living room, Riptide's remains in my hands as Lance sat on his knees, cradling his head in his hands. Nothing had invaded the settlement, _yet_.

I walked up and got on my knees, like mom would do when I was sad.

"Hey," I whispered. "Lance?"

"You alright?" I asked.

Lance blinked, looking confused as if he wasn't sure if he was meant to be here. I snapped my fingers, hoping to get his attention. "Lance, you in there?" More of the same confused look.

I grabbed hold of his shoulders and gave him a light shake. "Lance! Wake up!" It seemed to do the trick. His eyes began to gain focus. "Percy?" he whispered. "Yeah, man. Come on. You're awake." He finally seemed to realize where he was. I managed to help him back onto the couch and kept him from falling over.

Whatever happened must have really thrown him for a loop. Or he may have just power napped a bit too hard. I know I have (thanks school! I won't miss you!)

I grabbed grabbed a free chair and sat across from him. It took awhile before Lance was fully focused, but at least he was. "You okay?" was the first thing I asked. He nodded, rubbing his eyes and blinking a few times before replying. "Yeah… yeah, I think I am."

"Mind telling me what caused you to choose the ground to sleep on instead of the couch?" Now that Lance wasn't in any immediate danger, I felt better about questioning him.

"It… it was a dream. I had the weirdest dream. I saw… a-

 _Knock knock knock_

The sound of loud taps interrupted Lance's line of explanation, and I was forced to let him down and back to sleep. "Good dreams." I whispered.

I walked over to the shabby door and was met instantly with an urgent force. I first thought it was that nurse, but a familiar breath of suspiciously bad air said otherwise. The face of Adam Winchester flowed into view, stern frown in place.

"We need to talk."

 **A/N: Let's end it here pepper.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Percy**

"What's going on?" I asked, with a hint of irritation.

"No, nothing's going on." He said, pacing back and forth aggravatedly.

I was about to interrupt, but Adam stepped up to me with a stern gaze. "Except you." He stabbed a finger to the center of my chest, and quickly retracted it, like he was afraid of a reaction.

"I just know it. There's something wrong with you, Jackson, and I'm going to find out." He ranted with shallow breaths, almost like… he was afraid.

"I-I." Adam repeated, swallowing heavily. "I'll be watching you."

As he ran away, I couldn't help but be confused. What was wrong?

And why did it smell like burnt herbs?

 **Lance**

The house was silent as I awoke. The sun had yet to even brush against the horizon and the moon was in its descent.

" _Are you ready for your first training session_?" Typhon asked within my head. At first, I thought I had gone insane. It took me a second to remember that I was, in fact, hosting Typhon. I nodded, and was immediately rebuked from the King of Monsters.

" _Just think it next time. I'm a part of you now. Anything you think of will be just like if you were talking to me."_ Well, at least then I always had something to talk too, but that's just good old me, always looking on the bright side.

I made sure to keep as quiet as possible when sneaking out of Percy's house. I heard plenty of gossip that he was a rather deep sleeper, but I hadn't seen anything to prove such. That, and I'm sure they were only created by those that were jealous of him for having saved Olympus more times than most _gods_ (I would argue more than all demigods, but I would rather not have to re-endure my past teachings for nearly every demigod since history began).

I would say my sneaking skills in this situation were rather adequate, seeing as how the floors barely creaked under my weight, and the door made only the lightest squeak. I stepped through and shut the door as quietly as I opened it. Once I was certain Brother had not somehow managed to sneak behind me in some sort of twisted test, I made for the wall. With all that had happened recently, I was absolutely certain that even with our recent victory against the military base, Percy and I were being watched by nearly everyone here.

I would not hold it against them, as it was somehow apparently our fault for the attack in the first place, though how exactly I cannot say. Whatever the case, I had to sneak out. 'Are there any new powers that would allow me to, perhaps, turn invisible or fly?' I mentally questioned Typhon. He was silent for a moment.

" _Nope_ ," was his rather blunt reply. Well, that was anything but helpful. Guess I was going to have to make my own way, then.

The wall had been rebuilt after the attack, and with Percy and I bringing a few presents back, the shield was well on its way to being restored to its former glory. Until then, more sentries had been posted on the walls as a means to keep out the monsters.

Using the cover of night, I managed to sneak over to a certain portion of the wall that was still under construction. Plenty of pieces had to be taken down and restored, so this was both the best and worst way for me. I saw at least three guards along this side, their gaze constantly watching for any monsters that might want a midnight snack.

For ten minutes I sat there, watching them walk back and forth along the wall. Every few seconds, one would look back towards our encampment. The reason for this was something I wasn't aware of, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say it was to make sure no monsters had already breached the interior.

" _Or they could just be making sure no one was up during curfew."_ Typhon sneered.

'Asshole', I mentally cursed, immediately feeling a punching pain in my left ear.

'Hey, hey! Stop!' I yelled in my mind, until the pain, although only light, soothed.

Back on topic, that alone already forced my chances even lower. To top that off, my window of opportunity was only a few seconds long, when two guards would stand still and watch the horizon while the third would walk from one to the other. The most opportune time would be… now. As soon as the guard turned around, I made my way quickly to the wall. The shadows welcomed me as soon as I touched them, thank whatever controlled my fate now. I had to wait another minute or so before the guard once again reached my side and turned, allowing me a few seconds to get through.

There was a loosened portion of metal playing on here. Opening it would be difficult, especially since I did not want to alert anyone. So for the next five, arduous minutes I moved the metal section slowly, having to stop occasionally to wait for the one moving guard to turn their back on me.

The metal panel was far enough for me to squeeze through, but I needed more than a few seconds to get through. I searched around, hoping to find- _Use a rock, smartass_ , Typhon remarked in my mind.

A rock?

 _Yes, a rock. Do I have to spell it out for you? Take a rock, and throw the damn thing! I want to get this on and I know everyone else does too!_

Everyone else? What was he-

 _Just take the damn rock._

Fine then.

I drug my hands through the dirt, searching for a sizeable rock to use. I found one that was about as big as my fist, ripped it from the earth, and threw it towards a section of the wall farther down. It was close enough to catch the attention of all three guards.

"What the hell was that?" I heard one of them ask.

"You two wait here. I'll check it out." another replied, the sound of heavy footsteps following after.

If I was to manage out, now was the time. I managed to wiggle through the panel quick enough, and once through, I had to work meticulously to set it back _without_ losing any fingers.

Once that was done, I began a slow creep along the wall. While I could probably try and make a mad dash, two things would have undoubtedly happened. Either I would have been run down and captured, and then probably questioned (and more than likely seen as suspicious; probably they would think I might have had something to do with any and all previous attacks), or I would be shot down without a moment's hesitation and _then_ seen as suspicious. Not to mention the fact that Typhon mentioned he would not let me die. That alone would be a headache to discuss, nevermind explaining it.

So I made sure to creep along the wall towards the dead zone. There were still guards along the wall there, but not as many as you'd imagine. Apparently after the invasion, Gwen and the others had seen fit to rig the entire section with traps. Fire bombs, explosives, anything they could build with the remaining supplies and engineers. Something about "the dead zone being a vantage spot to attack from". Crafty bastards, but they were effective, I'll give them that.

So farther along I crept, minding my own place in the shadows. As I moved, I enjoyed the rather cool morning breeze. It was… calming. Yes. Calming.

Once I felt I was far enough, I creeped away. To both sides I checked, ensuring that no guards were near. Once I confirmed that I would have little difficulty breaking free, I made a dash towards the forest clearing where Percy and I trained previously. It would make excellent practice grounds for my regular magic. However, Typhon… Goodness that was a strange sensation, Typhon suggested another place not too far from there. As the monster was so eager to explain, he had access to all my memories. Even memories that I could not recall.

He elaborated that during our journey to the military base, I had come across a nice location, well hidden from view. I was to head there, and the fastest way would be from where Percy and I trained. So began my long trek.

Having to take a longer way towards the training area, the sky had become shaded with a growing pink. The sun would be rising soon. That meant everyone would be waking up. Hopefully my time with Percy had given me some semblance of Percy's behavior, at least in the eyes of the others. While he may be considered reckless, at least everyone considered him capable of defending himself. I hope everyone else considered me the same.

By the time I had arrived at the first site, dawn had already occured. Now came the walk to the other site. I didn't even stop to admire the tranquility of the place with no one here to disturb it. No, I had to move if I was to alleviate Typhon's excitement. As we were bonded, I could assume that we also shared emotions as well as memories, though I had yet to see any of Typhon's.

" _Do you really want to see my memories? I could show you no problem, believe me. But do you really want to see history you already know? I mean, wouldn't that be kind of boring?_ "

Not if it was from the eyes of the opposite side.

" _Touche_."

Winners write history, right?

" _Fuck you."_

For about a half-hour I walked on. The overhang provided by the trees was welcoming. For some reason, after my little… uh, let's call it a life experience… I've been finding myself more and more accustomed to the dark. Shadows felt comfortable during the day, and I was still empowered by night, which I now know to be Typhon with Nyx's intervention, and I've been more at ease when thinking of the monsters… and my relation with them.

The sun had already reached a height by the time I arrived. Typhon and I then… switched places. It was an astounding yet strange experience. It was like… like I was still aware of what my body was doing, but I was watching everything happen from over the shoulder.

Typhon rolled his (I refer my body under Typhon's control as Typhon himself) shoulders and smiled, blinking and changing eye color from mine to his. It was, for lack of a better term, weird.

"Right," he said, more than likely referring to me, "let's get started. Watch carefully, because I'm only going to show this once."

He whistled rather loudly, and before I knew it, one of the monster wolves had appeared. It snarled for a moment right at me, all teeth and fury, before turning and bowing to Typhon.

I tried my best to ignore how the monster's black coat seemed to be alive, bulging occasionally underneath the white plating- oh I'm doing it again.

"Right, so I'm going to teach you how to control these things. You see, it wouldn't be all that great for me if you didn't at least learn how to control your… new gifts."

The way he said gifts did not provide me with much courage. But I did make a pact with him, so I might as well learn what he had to teach.

"Atta' boy! Now, watch and feel what I do!"

Feel?

Typhon approached the wolf with no hesitation. Once close enough, he reached out and began to pet it, like it was some sort of domestic friend instead of a merciless destroyer of mankind. It actually pushed its head more into his hand, even closing his eyes like it was enjoying it. I could feel my mental eyes bulge out of their sockets and my demigod senses tense up in anticipation, but Typhon helped me suppress the urge to step in and rip the jaws from its face. Once it opened its eyes, Typhon smiled- And then promptly snapped its neck.

I whistled in applause, though I'm sure Typhon noticed the nervousness underneath it.

"You'll be fine." Typhon assured me, looking into my eyes.

"Now, as you know, I have the power to control these things, and by proxy so do you. However, you have just barely scratched the surface on that. That little display when you first came back was phenomenal, though I may have had a hand in that. Now, what can you remember feeling at that time?"

I thought for a moment. The first feelings I remember when I came back were… _I felt hatred. Hatred and… hatred annnnd….._ I couldn't finish the thought. I couldn't remember. There was this overwhelming sense of hatred. Hatred of the fact that these monsters and I were convolutedly related. Hatred at the military base and those that had take residence there for having not only attacked me, but those I cared about. I felt absolute hatred at Nyx, and the gods, and the Fates for having brought this curse down on everyone. Lastly, I felt hatred for myself, for having let down my guard and letting nearly everyone I cared about be slaughtered.

But there was another feeling, too. It was like there was this overbearing darkness that had fallen over me. Like I was wrapped in a blanket of shadow. Something like that. That, and it was a cold, but welcome feeling. Like stepping into a nice wind after having to endure intense heat. Those were what I felt.

"Good. Now, embrace those feelings. Remember how deep they ran, how they affected you, how they made you feel as a whole. If you can bring forth those feelings, and keep yourself under control, then you'll be right as rain…. That's how the expression goes, right?" I shrugged. I had not spent much time amongst humans, and that was only after the world ended so there was that.

Typhon gave me another grin, and I felt myself once again returning to my body. I could only describe it as the reverse as leaving, going from simply watching to actually taking my place back in my body.

" _Now to practice,_ " Typhon giggled.

You didn't.

" _I did. I figured the best way to learn is to learn on the job. Now, you've got about seven seconds before another wolf arrives. I suggest getting a move on with your powers._ "

Right. Seven seconds. Because I can easily learn a power in seven seconds. Yeah, no.

" _Don't backsass me. You've got two seconds_."

Damn.

Just as Typhon predicted, another wolf mutant came stalking from the forest. Just like before, it snarled.

" _Right, so the first thing to remember is they can smell fear._ "

I'm pretty sure that was something mortals had said about wild animals.

" _Yes, but it's actually true in this case. You can show no fear_."

Great… though I wondered what of this information I could reveal to the settlement. After all, it was important, maybe provide an explanation for why we kept running into them at the worst times possible.

As the wolf padded around me, I tried my best to calm my nerves. Being this close to a monster, and without a weapon, it was actually more difficult than you'd imagine. My heart pounded in my ears as I kept eyes with the beast. It stopped right in front of me, its snarl growing even more. I think it smells my fear...

" _Gee, you think? Just kill it and we'll try again_."

Easier said than done.

The next few seconds were a blur, and I only knew what happened after Typhon himself told me… though it sounded much more exaggerated. I'm sure I did not scorch a radius of twenty feet with a burst of power. What had probably happened was the beast rushed me just as I prepared a magical blast, and in the altercation I perhaps scorched a tree or two before destroying the thing.

What I do remember was coming to a few moments later. Typhon was laughing uproariously in my head.

" _That was simply fantastic! Oh, you've come a long way since being stuck in that nest with me. Now, let's try that again!_ "

His enthusiasm was admirable, but did not do much to alleviate my nervousness and doubts.

" _Bah, you'll come around eventually. Another wolf's coming up. You've got about twenty seconds. Go._ "

At least I had some more time.

The next beast appeared, again just in time as predicted. And just as before, I had to blast this one, though I managed to suppress the urge to kill it a bit better.

" _Well, I guess we can make today just a practice for self-control_. _It's a good lesson; know your enemy first. Preferably before they know you. Makes it easier. Trust me, it's not exactly easy for me, being, you know, the size of a tornado."_

I thanked him for the advice.

In this strange game of practice, I found the same things happening, and each time a wolf surfaced from the bushes I began to feel more at ease. The Myrmidons had told stories of how they had grown accustomed to facing a certain creature by encountering it over and over again. Nice to know I could fight at a level where I could find things relatable with the fiercest warriors of Olympus…

Speaking of fighting, I began. 'How come there's so many mutants here? We haven't encountered them in concentrations this large.'

" _Well, I began drawing them in a while ago. These things don't actually travel too much unless they see humans."_

So he'd been planning this for a while now?

" _Uh-huh, what, just because I'm a monster I can't make plans?"_

By the time the sun had reached its peak in the sky, the surrounding forest as a series of scorched trees and evaporating monster bodies. However, I had felt calm, and the least bit nauseous, but that was most likely from using magic so much. I had begun to notice the decadent peace of the nature around me. The air tasted sweet, with a hint of smoke thanks in part to myself. I could feel the remaining dew seeping into the bottoms of my pants. The sound of birds had come as music to my ears.

It was nice, being able to take in the surrounding beauty, if only briefly.

 _Another one, thirty seconds,_ Typhon informed.

He had long stopped cheering, now more interested in my recently attained peace. The beast had arrived, yet again as predicted. Unlike all the other times - of which I'm sure it was possibly twenty - I was ready. The beast snarled like the rest, padded around a bit, but then it stopped. It sat, in front of me, eyeing me curiously.

 _Well, I honestly never thought we'd get here. Okay then. On to step two. Remember how I told you to use your emotions, but remain calm? Focus on your feelings for those emotions. Remember what brought you to those emotions. Remember how you felt._

Right. That made about as much sense as Zeus deciding animals were the best way to woo women (I am sure he used magics to actually woo them and simply used the animal forms to get in and out without being noticed by Hera).

(Wait, _animal_ -?)

" _You got this! And if you die, it's still a step closer to mastery!"_ Typhon interrupted. His words of encouragement were much less helpful than I could have ever imagined.

The beast had yet to make a move, so I imagined I had at least found a way to camouflage myself… I think. Following Typhon's words, I remembered when I came back from death. I remembered the hatred. I remembered how for the first few seconds I had felt a hatred so inhuman I felt no remorse as I threw the man that shot me to the birds and tried to focus on that.

Nothing.

The beast just sat there, looking at me as if it couldn't make heads or tails of me. It soon found its face melted by a magical bolt. Granted, they were thrown in anger and the cliche of magicians was to never use powers under emotions, but screw that. I had found out I can make myself unknown to these beasts by keeping myself blank. That alone was a freaking achievement but a part of me kept nagging about how I would eventually have found that out anyway.

 _Bah, so what? You managed to do it! That's what counts!_

Right! This probably meant I could do it again.

 **-()-**

Well, turns out I couldn't. Try as I did, my efforts were all ground to dust by the end. It seemed like… two steps forward, fifty-thousand light-years back.

Since it was already past noon, I figured it would be time for me to head back. As I trudged back to the settlement… which I'm sure had a name, I began to think of ways to explain my way back in. I'm sure the adrenaline from the past few days was wearing off and that was making me just a tad paranoid, but that paranoia came back full force by saying,

"It's not paranoia if someone's out to getcha."

Typhon?

" _Oh, that's not me. At least, I don't think so. Are you by any chance afraid the guards will shoot you at a moment's notice?_ "

No?

" _Good, then it's just you_."

Okay… then.

The sun had already reached a halfway point in its descent by the time I got back. The guards at the gate stiffened for a second, but they weren't planning on shooting me… yet.

"Oi, Lance!" the one in the middle of the three greeted, waving as he shouted at me. Great, John. Always with the feelings, that one.

" _Let's hope he doesn't pull the family-styled worry face with the puppy dog eyes._ "

Yeah.

" _I wasn't being serious, you kno-"_

John raced down the steps and met me out front.

"Where were you today? Everyone was in a fuss about you being missing. Even Percy was a bit… annoyed." His voice sounded just like a father that I never had, and his face had the same look of worry I imagined Mother with whenever Percy returned from a quest.

Ignoring my tenant's ramblings, I tried to think of something. It was at that moment I realized I was not great at coming up with something on the spot. "Uh…" I muttered.

Before pretending to toughen up. "You mean to say that none of you were participating in your duties?" I asked sternly.

As John rubbed the back of his neck, Gwen came storming up to the gate, Adam and Percy following. Adam was just like John, worried but relaxing by the second. Although, I must say, something must have been with the way he frowned.

Percy and Gwen were exactly the opposite of each other despite giving off the same presence. Gwen was fuming to the point I could imagine steam pouring from her ears. Percy, on the other hand, was ice cold, with a look that was equally disappointed and angry. For a moment, I was sent back to the first time I had accidentally bumped into Zeus and spilled his drink. Gods, never before did I feel I was going to die before that day.

"And where have you been?" Gwen asked, rather calm-like despite her appearance. Percy said nothing, so I imagined he was wondering about all the ways he could kill me and make it look like he just knocked me out.

"I was out," I began, slowly coming up with an explanation.

"I... had left early this morning. I didn't see any guards so I guess they were changing shifts." Not exactly impossible, as the early morning guards were quick to leave and slow to come.

"I just walked out the front door."

"And what, pray tell, was so important that you'd leave and not tell _anyone_?" Percy asked. There was a dangerous tone to his voice, a hidden blade if you will. Gods, I was liking my chances less and less.

 **Percy**

Gods was I having a fun time. I know, you're probably asking, "But Percy, aren't you mad at him for sneaking out?" A little, yeah, but he _is_ my brother. I'd be worried if he _didn't_ act out from time to time. And I could already guess why he went out without telling anyone. He was probably practicing his magic and wanted to try it on his own for once. I feel like a total dad for this, but I'm so proud of him. That didn't mean I couldn't milk the opportunity, though. Seeing him squirm was just so damn satisfying.

"I went out to train." That was all he said. Called it.

Sadly Gwen wasn't as enthusiastic about it as I was.

"You. Went out. To train. _All by yourself._ " Gods, was Gwen secretly Hera or something? I knew she [probably] cared for Lance, mainly because of how he came to the group, but still. Even I felt that chill, and I was being as much like Zeus as possible.

However, I had to give Lance credit. He was keeping himself together. He nodded.

"I'm sorry." He even pulled off the sickest, most saddened look of puppy dog eyes I had ever seen, and I've dealt with the Aphrodite cabin. That was saying something. It worked, though. Gwen practically melted. She still looked ready to throttle him, but her shoulders relaxed. That was her tell.

"Just… don't do it again. You don't have to be a hero." Boy, was she clueless.

Lance nodded. With that settled, we all returned to our houses (or as most liked to address them, shacks). I wasn't on shift until this evening, and training wasn't scheduled for today. As we walked back to my place, I spoke to him.

"You know, if you wanted to train you could have just asked." When I looked over at him, he wasn't looking at me. He was looking away.

"Brother… this isn't something you can help me train with. It's… it's something I have to do on my own."

"Look, I may not know much about magic, but I can at least try to help. At the very least I can carry you back if you ever knock yourself out." The pained look told me I struck gold on that one.

"Percy, please. This isn't something anyone can help me with."

What, so I can't help out with magic? I've trained plenty of Type B demigods before, and all of them turned out just great! Not to mention there was the fact that I suddenly had _two_ types of powers to work with. Lance, as far as I could tell, was just plain magic. I think that put me in a league over him. But I could understand him. After all, back in the day I was a huge deal to everyone. Even Lance heard of me on Olympus. If I had to guess, he probably thought he was in my shadow and had to strike it on his own.

"Hey, if you want to do this, I won't stop you. Just know that I won't think lesser of you if you ask for help." Another pained look. Man, I was just striking home on this one. Alright, time to back off. I opened the door and just immediately walked over to the couch. Gods did I need a break.

And I couldn't help but think there was something wrong- oh whatever, I'm over-stressing myself again.

 **Lance**

Well that went better than expected. Honestly I was expecting threats of skin flaying, intestine skip rope, and something about bamboo shoots. While Percy was on the couch, probably lying in wait to strike. I wouldn't put it past him. Still, after today I could use a nap.

 _Nuh-uh, you gots lots more to do._

Like use proper syntax?

 _Har har. No, smartass. I'm talking about more training_.

"But I just did that," I harshly whispered. Talking by using my thoughts was getting a little tiring.

"Besides, I'm too tired to do much else." Silence followed, so either Typhon decided to let me have this or he was distracted. Either way, I was out.

And guess where I went to.

No sooner did my eyes close did I see the same decorative office, with the snow falling softly outside. Typhon was lazily spinning in the chair as he watched the ceiling.

"You're no fun," grumbled the father to all monsters.

"You were so close, and then…" he made a buzzing noise with his tongue.

"Well what was I supposed to do? Just keep going until I died? You know I only have a finite amount of magic and dying isn't exactly something I plan on doing often," was my response.

An obnoxious "hmph" was all he said before spinning around again.

I sat there in silence, waiting for something to happen, like perhaps a dream. Minutes passed though it felt like hours. Suddenly, Typhon shot from his seat, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

"Ohh. OOh, we've got a big one!" He was shaking now, his grin taking up nearly the entirety of his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word the entire room started to shake. It wasn't much at first, but in about three seconds the room went from slightly jumbling to full on earthquake.

"What the hell is happening?" I shouted over the noise. Most of the wall furnishings were either on the floor or rattling against the wall.

Typhon looked at me as if he were confused. Wasn't this a part of the dream? He reached out to me just as my vision tunneled.

Someone was shaking me awake, rather violently might I add.

"Wh-ha-ha-ha-at?" stuttered I, between shakes. Whoever was shaking me let go. Once the world stopped spinning, I turned to look over at whoever decided it was wise to wake me up.

Now, I'm no stranger to weird things. I grew up on Olympus where strange was an everyday occurrence. But seeing an occult gathering of settlement goers all within Percy's place… I don't know, set me off.

It was dark out, so I was willing to guess I wasn't out for long. I looked at each person that had so rudely invaded Percy's dwelling.

"Uh, hi?" Granted, probably not the best starting method, but honestly I was still a bit woozy from the shaking. Speaking of which, you'll never guess who was shaking me awake.

"Adam?" I questioned. Honestly, seeing the dude brought more questions than answers. I mean, for starters why was everyone here?

"You've got some explaining to do," he muttered. Was… was he trying to be intimidating? I sat up, trying to get my body back into the real world. Everyone took a step back. They looked afraid, but… why? Did I do something that made them afraid? Oh gods, did Percy's stories finally get to them?

"Okay," I drawled, trying not to drool over myself. Gods, what was wrong with me?

"Wha's goin' on?" Now I know something was wrong with me. My speech was slurring, I wasn't getting any energy back. I could hardly sit up straight. Did Adam do something to me while I was asleep?

"We've taken some precautions. No hard feelings, but we can't take any chances. We're doing this to help you." That did not sound good. I tried to hold consciousness, even trying to contact Typhon, but I was too loopy to do anything. The only thing I could do was black out. As I floated in my first dreamless sleep, I couldn't help but feel prickling from my scalp. Goosebumps rolled across my head, and it tickled.

I sat there for some time, I couldn't tell you for how long, before I was once again woken up by someone shaking me. Gods, that was getting old quick.

Opening my eyes, I saw that I was once again under a roof, but something felt off. I couldn't move, and sensation had yet to return to my body. Lying there, I heard something rattling off to my left. It sounded like chains, but smaller.

Adam had once again stood over me, this time holding four necklaces: a Star of David, a cross, a crescent moon with a tiny star hanging into the center, and a small token with what looked to be a an odd 'W' with an extra half-loop on its left side, a tiny barb on its right, and what I assumed to be a spear of some sort just to the right of that. My eyesight was a bit blurry at that moment, so I couldn't be sure.

"Lance? Can you hear me?" asked Adam. He looked worried. I wonder why? "Give me a sign that you're in there, somewhere." Slowly sensation returned to my body, and with it a harsh, dull pain. I groaned, trying to fight through it, and I guess Adam took that as a sign.

"Hang on, bud. We'll save you." Wait, save me? From what?

" _Hello? Testing, testing. 1 2 1 2. Lance, you there?_ "

Typhon? What in the Hell was going on?

" _Don't know, having a really hard time just maintaining connection with you at the moment. Whatever they've done really did a number on your magical reserves. You're nearly on empty in here._ "

I went ahead and assumed that was bad.

" _Like you wouldn't believe. Thankfully nothing seems permanent. I've added just a little bit of my power to you to shoot through this crap. Can you feel anything?_

I could feel a deep pain that kept hitting my bones like a sledgehammer.

" _Good, that means whatever they did to you is wearing off. What's going on outside?_ "

Adam had four necklaces hovering over me. Looked like he had a Jewish star, a moon with a tiny star, and some kind of weird W with a spear.

" _Wow. Okay, if memory serves he might be trying to perform an exorcism on you_. _With his own little touch, of course. Or he has no idea what he's doing. Well, it did screw up your reserves, so unfortunately we'll have to stick with the former."_

Wait, exorcism? Why would Adam want to do that?

" _No idea, maybe he's just stupid. Doesn't matter now, just bide your time and let your power come back. Meanwhile, I'm going to put up some defenses in case they try anything new."_

I had wanted to question why Typhon thought Adam and who I guessed to be his (two member large) religious posse try anything magical, but he was gone before I could. So now I was left alone with Adam and two new people. I had seen them before, but damn if I knew their names. Tracy was the Woman- maybe girl in a red sweater that somehow stayed clean, adorned by the silver cross that functioned as her necklace.

"Tracy, Mika, get ready. We don't know what we're dealing with here. So when you start chanting, don't stop no matter what happens." The boy was shaking like a leaf and the woman kept giving me horrified looks, before Adam reached out to them.

Those two, huh… Mika and Tracy were the little more cautious, perhaps awkward with a side of small superstitions type of person. I guess they fit in well with Adam, having similar personalities that mixed with his more commanding nature. I didn't really know anything about group dynamics, so I was eager to learn.

The first thing they did was pour water over my head. Both Adam and Mika stood on either side of my head. Mika cupped his hands on my head. They began to chant.

"Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust…"

In the beginning, I could make no sense of this. The three chanted in synchrony, voices mixed together in a strange sense that came out as a jargon of noises. Eventually, I realized my mistake; Tracy and Mika were chanting in english while Adam spoke in some strange dialect that neither Typhon nor I could make any sense of.

Once Adam and his companions had finished with a suppressed cough, he pulled out what looked like a ram's horn from underneath the table.

"Here goes nothing," he muttered before blowing into the horn.

I was expecting some kind of deep, almost earthquake-like sound to come from it, like I heard from Ares' war horn. I wasn't expecting it to be so high-pitched. It sounded more like a trumpet than a horn, but Adam was adamant about blowing it.

The whole procession lasted for about ten minutes, with Adam and Mika doing more than simply commanding me, like Tracy was so bent on doing. Still, nothing. Honestly, I couldn't tell you why nothing was happening, but really this seemed more of a big waste of time than anything.

" _Hey, I'm bored_ ," Typhon muttered in my mind. I was too, but I was a little tied up at the moment.

" _Can I come out to play?"_ 'Are you going to try and kill them for tying us up?'

" _No…_ " he trailed off.

'No killing,' I muttered.

" _Ugh, fine._ "

'And no torturing.'

" _UUGGGGHHH! FIne!"_

'And under no circumstances are you to use magic against them.'

" _Yes mom!"_ Typhon shouted back.

'Swear on the River Styx you won't harm them.' Typhon was silent for a moment, probably mulling over whether he wanted out of this situation, or to see just how long they would take. Him sighing gave me my answer.

" _Fine, I swear on the River Styx not to harm them_."

Thunder rolled overhead, catching everyone's attention.

"Uh, was that a sign?" Mika asked, his hands trembling against my scalp. It actually felt kind of nice despite my current predicament.

"I-i don't think so," Tracy muttered nervously.

"It's probably just the weather acting up again." Boy was she wrong. "It doesn't matter. We need to do this. There's something in Lance and we need to get it out of him," Adam insisted, continuing his part.

While everyone else went back to what they had been doing, I had closed my eyes and let Typhon take control. My consciousness had once again taken a sort of over-the-shoulder perspective, and I could see Typhon lying on the table, keeping his eyes closed. I also noticed that not only had I been placed on a rather dirty bed, they had tied me to the damn thing! What in the name of Olympus were these people up to?

Typhon groaned, shifting a little like he was trying to get comfortable. Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and turned to Typhon.

"Adam, why am I on this table?" Typhon asked, keeping himself rather composed given how excited he felt.

"There's something evil inside you Lance. Something dark. We're here to try and help you. We're trying to get this thing out of you."

"Well, you're right about one thing," Typhon said. He opened his eyes, his being red and dragon-like, and muttered, "There's something here."

Poor Mika had tripped over himself trying to get away from Typhon so fast. I was pretty sure Tracy was trying to keep herself from having a heart attack, and Adam went pale. I'm not joking about that. It's like the man literally lost every ounce of his blood just standing there.

Typhon, meanwhile, was smirking. I could feel his excitement and he was trying so hard not to laugh at them. The rope bindings holding me down were no match for Typhon as he sat up. They snapped with ease and Typhon swung his legs over the bed.

"As fun as this was, I have more important things to do."

'What things? You don't do things.' I countered.

" _Yes I do. I take enthusiastic walks through the woods."_

'And waste your time killing mutant wolves that you, not us, called over.' I retorted.

He gave Tracy, Mika, and Adam each a knowing grin, and made his way out of the house.

When he got us outside, I could see we were in the middle of the Dead Zone. No wonder that bed looked so dirty.

Typhon set off for the main camp. The moon sat high in the sky and I could see just a few lights back where everyone else was. Once he was far enough away, Typhon couldn't hold it in anymore. He laughed.

He laughed, and laughed, and laughed. He laughed for five minutes, which I'm sure I was going to feel when I took control again. Typhon had to even prop himself onto a nearby wall to keep himself from falling over.

"Did- did you see their faceshahahahahahaha! Oh- oh my gahahahahahahahahaha!" That's pretty much how it went for about five minutes.

Once he began to calm down, Typhon was gulping in air, a fit of giggles occasionally escaping him.

"Aw, we need to do that again." he finally said. Why oh why did I get the feeling he was being serious?

'That's great and all, but we need to get back. I'm sure Percy's getting into a fuss because I didn't say I was leaving tonight.' The thoughts of how he might get angry filled me more with dread than him worrying about me.

"Oh gods…. He's probably going to tear me apart in training next time."

"Ah, he won't stay mad at you for long. He'll probably kick those guys into Tartarus and back and then calm down." I so desperately wanted to believe Typhon.

"There he is!" Adam shouted. Oh damn. I thought we were done with them.

"Not yet, it looks like." Typhon mumbled, before dashing off towards Percy's house. Whatever was in my system had less of an effect on Typhon, but he was still showing signs of sluggishness. Normally at top speed I could make it from one side of the settlement to the end of the Dead Zone in about four minutes (mostly due to farmland and rubble). At the rate we were going we'd reach Percy's house in about forty.

"You… try… and… run… like… this…" 'No, you're good. Keep going,' I encouraged from the side.

Typhon was just about to reach the edge of the remains of the settlement when something hit us in the back. I couldn't see what hit us, because I was suddenly regaining control of my body.

" _Wait, what's happening?"_ I heard Typhon, sounding more angry than confused. I couldn't speak. It was like the wind was knocked from my lungs all of the sudden. I tried to reach around, to feel what had hit me, but my arm just couldn't reach.

I was losing focus. The world began to spin, and I could hardly keep my balance. I stumbled forward, focusing on the lights just a few more feet ahead.

My arms began to grow cold, numb even. They just hung limply by my sides, and my hearing was slowly taken over by this high-pitched whine, like they were ringing. It began to grow louder, anything else sounding like it was coming through a dense wall of water.

My legs couldn't hold me anymore and I soon found the earth racing up to meet me. I didn't feel any pain. The ground didn't feel hard. It felt... Cold. I couldn't move my eyes. I could only stare ahead at the houses off to my left. It was like I was back in Percy's house when I first woke to find Adam. My eyes felt heavy, and I could hardly focus. I was aware of Typhon calling out to me, but he sounded distant. The world began to blur.

Through the dark a soft, orange light appeared, the ground gaining some color. The world began to blur.

I couldn't be for certain, but I was sure I heard voices. What they were saying, I couldn't tell you. I just wanted to sleep.

The world faded to black, and I felt myself drifting once again in a dreamless sleep. I floated through the darkness, finding it oddly comfortable once again. Then, something unseen began to pull me, yanking me through the darkness. Dark nothing soon gave way to white light, and once again I found myself back in the same white space where I first met Typhon.

He was sitting at the same wooden desk, holding an ice pack to his head and leaning back into his plush chair. "Sit," he grumbled, waving at the chair across from him. I did.

We sat in silence for eternity, neither of us saying a word. The room began to reform, this time becoming a grand hall. Mint-green walls surrounded us, supported by mahogany beams around the edges. A second floor encircled us above, and paintings adorned the walls. Off to our right was a balcony, flanked by twin staircases. Holding up this balcony was a statue of a woman, golden chains binding her wrists. Seeing the statue… I couldn't tell you why, but I absolutely hated seeing that statue.

Shoving the anger aside, I turned back to Typhon.

"Where are we?" I asked. Typhon lowered his ice pack onto the floor next to him, blinking a few times. "Well," he began, sounding completely worn out. "We're at a place that's pretty important to your future. That's all I can say for sure."

It was like the universe had a cue when he said that, because the moment he said that doors burst open on boths sides of the hall. To my right came five people. Only one boy was with them, his entire clothing consisting of silver and black. Even his hair was silver. He had this look of smugness and this aura that just made me despise him. I couldn't tell you why, I just did.

Now for the rest of his group, all women. Starting on the far left of their group was a girl with close-cut hair, and eyes that were like the sky. A small leather belt clung to her neck, her shirt had a high collar but had the sleeves ripped off. There was something black underneath her shirt, perhaps a bra or an undergarment, that just peeked out from the shirt neckline. She wore fingerless gloves and a leather bracer on her right arm. Her pants were an odd sort. They had this brownish-red color to them. Her right pant leg had been rolled up as high as it would go while the other had been tucked into a stocking that ran to one of the boots she wore. The other boot, the one under the rolled up side, had a leather strap go from the top of her boot into her pants.

The next lady could only be described as dangerous. Her hair was as black as the mutants we fought and fell down to the back of her knees. Her bangs were a mess, and her eyes were underscored her eyes, which already had bags under them. And oddly enough, her eyes were red. She had these necklaces hanging from her heck. Now most her attire consisted battle armor, crimson like her eyes, and looking heavily influenced by samurai. On her right hip hung a white helmet, but it looked angular, bird-like even. On her left hip hung a sword. She wore a short black skirt and leggings…. I think they were leggings, all the way up to her thighs, and black boots underneath.

After her and the silver guy came the green girl. Well, she wasn't green per say, she had green hair. Mint green hair actually. It looked like the ice cream I'd seen mortals eat when I had been on practice missions. Now that I think about it, I've never had ice cream. The girl's eyes were also red, but they were a darker shade of red. Her top covered the essentials, so to speak. It consisted of this… I don't know what to call it. It was this top that wrapped around her neck and then crossed over itself to make an X on her chest. She wore a green bra that wasn't covered by her top at all. I believed she had on khaki pants (they could have been shorts) that were held in place by a belt, and her legs had stockings _over_ her pants/shorts that ended just under her knees.

Before I could go on, Typhon appeared in front of me. "I'm sure you're enjoying the ladies as much as I am, but they aren't why you were called here."

"So... "

He smirked, like he knew something I didn't - which was most likely the case - before he pointed to the upper balcony. "Up there. Go. Before anyone else-" The room started to tremble again, this time without as much ferocity as the last one. Typhon lowered his head. "Son of a-" And he was gone.

The dream faded to black once more, and soon I found myself back in the real world. My eyes were still closed, and I still felt something in my back, but there were other people here, now. "What. Happened. Here." Percy growled.

From my right, "Who did this? Which one of you threw a knife at him?" Gwen cried. So that's what was in my back.

" _Wait for it!"_ Typhon called.

Why would I… 'Typhon?'

" _Mhmm?"_

I couldn't say what I wanted to, but for posterity's sake I'll give you a general rundown of what I wished to say. I wanted to ask him why he enjoyed my suffering. I wanted to call him things that would make even Zeus cringe, and believe me I would have had it not been for the sudden burst of pain that erupted from my back

.

My body wasn't acting right - I'm certain it was the knife, though I suspect Typhon as well - so I couldn't groan in agony or cry out in pain.

 **Percy**

To say I was furious would have been an understatement. To say that not even Zeus could have stopped me right now would have been a laughable joke. No, I was undoubtedly pissed. Where do I begin? I'm angry because not only was my brother kidnapped but also kidnapped by Adam and two of his followers, literally right under our noses. Second thing that's got my blood boiling was that not only did they try to chase him down but they had to throw a _knife_ into his _back_.

Good gods if it weren't for the fact that I was trying to keep my magical prowess a secret I would have already popped these three like overfilled balloons. Adam was trembling, which I could understand because Gwen, Bran, and I were confronting them and I had Kronos out and ready.

"We were just trying to help," Mika explained, somehow managing to keep himself together. Tracy was just standing there, pale as a ghost. But her eyes weren't on me or Kronos. They were on Lance. Following her gaze, I looked down at the dead form of my brother (though I don't know if he'll remain dead for long). He was still lying down, the knife sticking out from his back. But he wasn't still. His hand was slowly creeping towards the knife. He grasped it, and slowly began to pull it out. Everyone had their eyes on him.

There was no way I could spin this to our advantage. Everyone saw Lance drop like a rock. Gwen even confirmed he was dead. Damn it.

A groan came from Lance and he rolled over. His eyes were once again red, like when he was first revived. He huffed, working through the pain of the knife wound. "What the hell?" Bran breathed. Come on Percy, come up with something. You can do this.

Try as I might, I couldn't come up with something quick enough. Lance was already getting back to his normal self, and everyone had given him a wide berth. He closed his eyes and groaned once again, but this time he managed to speak, too. "That shit hurts," he mumbled, sitting up and rubbing his back. I coughed into my hand and he stopped. He looked up and finally noticed everyone.

"Oh… uh… hi?" he finally said after a long pause. "Lance, what the hell is-" BANG! Lance fell dead, again, onto the ground. Blood began to pool around his head. Mika had fired his pistol at Lance.

Out of reflex I had grabbed the gun and put Mika on the ground.

"What the Hell Mika!?" John shouted, kneeling next to Lance.

"What the Hell is going on?!" Gwen shouted over him, marching over to me and pulling me off Mika. I holstered the pistol in my pants and tried to come up with an excuse. "I don't know," I told her. I tried my best to sound convincing, but damn if I could persuade someone. That was always the Stolls' field.

"Percy, I'm being serious here. What. The. Hell. is going on?" Gwen interrogated coldly. Inside my mind I had a bit of a debate. If I tried to lie about this Gwen would only get more and more aggravated. Not only that but if I did somehow manage to convince them then Lance would be isolated. He even might be thrown out. I refused to let either of those happen. On the other hand, if I told them the truth we _both_ might be isolated and/or cast out.

I had taken too long to think. Only a few seconds passed, but I knew I had taken too long when I heard John suddenly scream. Now, I pegged John to be a calm guy, one who didn't scream much. I was proven wrong because that guy had a scream. High-pitched, kind of raspy… ish. The reason being was, you (probably) guessed it: Lance rising from the dead. He even sat up in the most cliche way possible, going slow and straight as a board.

John scrambled back and everyone raised their rifles. I sighed. "You're just going to waste ammo." Yeah, I decided to just go with it. They'd probably find out some way or another anyway. Their guns were still trained on Lance, but at least they weren't going to shoot… hopefully.

"Percy, what, in the absolute HELL, is going on?" Gwen asked, breaking her calm demeanor only to curse at me. Bitch.

"Lance is…" I sighed. "Well, you see, my brother and I possess… abilities."

Silence.

Silence.

Even _more_ silence.

"Guys?" I asked.

Bran was the first to break the silence. "No shit?"

At least he was taking this rather well.

Gwen spoke up next. "Now is not the time for jokes, Percy." Jokes? Did no one believe me?

"Wait, what? You have superpowers?" John questioned, having come out from behind everyone else. I nodded, and helped Lance to his feet. He stumbled a little but I imagined it was because of the bullet in his head. He doubled over and began to cough horribly until a small metal object popped out of his mouth and dropped onto the ground.

It was the bullet that Mika had shot into his skull. I'll admit that that was actually kind of cool.

No one made a move. Gwen stared at Lance as if she was just noticing him for the first time. John practically fainted. Mika, Tracy, and Adam were all busy praying. Bran was the only one taking this in stride.

"It's not the weirdest thing we've seen," he offered to the others.

"I mean Percy did find a scythe that _only he can use_. Not only that but it does make more sense that they both took out an entire military compound on their own. And are we really going to ignore those mutants? They don't seem to obey any kind of logic either."

I was not expecting Bran to hop onto the magic wagon so quickly, but I'll take it.

"How can you be so calm about this?" Gwen nearly shrieked. I guess hearing about magic was throwing the scientist off the deep end. Bran shrugged.

"The world's ended, monsters are everywhere, and Percy has a scythe that can set people on fire and morph. I'm honestly not surprised. Besides, they're on our side…" His face faltered for a second before he turned to me.

"You _are_ on our side, right?" I nodded.

"Yup." was my reply. I believe in simple things.

Bran smiled.

"There! You see? Now we've got two kickass wizards on our side." Lance cleared his throat.

"Uh… we're not technically wizards." I glanced at him, playing with him a little. He shrunk and decided to stay quiet.

 **A/N:**

 **Goodsir: Well, people, it's finished. Uploading… and… Done!**


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